


Fall Away

by Sarathewise



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Also Miro 'cause they literally don't meet until season 4, Altean Lance (Voltron), Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon, Balmeran Hunk (Voltron), F/F, Female Pronouns for Pidge | Katie Holt, Galra Keith (Voltron), Gender-Neutral Pronouns for Pidge | Katie Holt, I don't know what the christ that's supposed to mean but it's pretty fitting so I'm using it, I've never really tried/read it but I'm doing something new, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Shiro (Voltron) Has PTSD - Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Slow Burn, The Pallura is experimental btw, The slow burn is Klance, There's a coming out scene y'all, unsurprisingly
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-03
Updated: 2018-10-07
Packaged: 2019-01-29 02:42:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 24,801
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12621360
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sarathewise/pseuds/Sarathewise
Summary: Fall Away, or the one in which…Ulaz said he’d get Shiro out, not get him home.If Katie can’t search the Garrison, then she’ll search the damn desert herself.Lance doesn't think being locked in a cryopod for 10,000 years was covered in his Paladin training.Hunk doesn’t wanna leave his family or the Balmera, but if that’s what it takes to keep them safe... he’s gonna miss Shay.Keith can’t punch Sendak without getting in trouble, but if the Red Lion suddenly went missing…





	1. Fall Away

**Author's Note:**

> Woo, first Voltron fic! This is also my first fic in a few years, so yeah. Sorry about the time units, but literally the only Altean time units that make sense to me are ticks. Also, the Alteans had no qualms about using days and years in the show, so I won’t either.

### Shiro

The first thing Shiro sees when he wakes up is the inside of an unfamiliar cockpit.

 

The last thing he remembers is (sterile scalpels in a sterile room, a surgeon leaning over him, a buzzing in his arm that he’s keeping from being a sharp pain through sheer force of will) absolutely nothing, which means there’s no time like the present to figure out what the hell is going on. His head is kinda fuzzy, which probably isn’t good, but he has more pressing matters to deal with. Literally.

 

From the state of the cockpit, it looks like he definitely didn’t have a smooth landing. There are loose wires everywhere, some things are sparking, and the control panel is pressed uncomfortably into his legs. He has a feeling he’s gonna have pins and needles when he gets it off. If he gets it off.

 

He spends a good fifteen minutes just trying to pry it off of him with his shiny new mechanical arm, the one he’s really trying to not think about too hard. As predicted he has to sit there and wiggle his toes until he can press his foot against anything without feeling like he’s being stabbed repeatedly. When he does stand, it’s on wobbly, unreliable legs. He should probably figure out where he is, just as a starting point. Situational awareness never hurt anyone, right? Hopefully.

 

The door to this spacecraft is way at the back and jammed due to the lack of power. It takes a few hard shoves before it pops open, and Shiro is blinded by a planet that’s much brighter than the purple and black interior of his own ship.

 

Once his eyes have adjusted to the new light level, he steps outside the ship and looks around. Surrounding him is a field of green grass, with rolling hills not too far away. He seems to have crashed in a valley; lucky him. There doesn’t seem to be any civilization that he can see at first glance, which he’s not sure if he’s happy about or not. It does mean that he’ll have to count on surviving on his own, so he might as well check for supplies in his ship.

 

The compartments are well hidden and he has to pry a lot of them open, but he finds most of what he’s looking for. By the time he’s done, he has an emergency blanket, water and rations that he folds into the blanket for now, a small medkit that he also stores there, a pretty hefty hunting knife and sheath that he attaches to his belt, and some rope. It’s not a lot, but it’s more than he started with. He steps back out and is surprised to see that he’s no longer alone. He shifts the blanket and rope to his mechanical arm and steps out slowly, hoping not to scare his new guests.

 

“Hello?” he calls. “I know you’re there. You can come out; I’m not trying to hurt you.” He gets a few heads to peek out in response, but none of the aliens actually step out from behind the rocks they’re hiding behind. He doesn’t really blame them. His experience with aliens so far has him a bit wary as well. Instead, he decides to try a new tactic.

 

He dumps the blanket and rope on the ground, then unclips the knife from his belt and puts that on the ground too. He puts his hands up and- even though it earned him a year that he can’t quite remember and really doesn’t want to- says “I mean you know harm.” Then, with his arms still up, he decides to ask his questions. “Can you tell me where I am? Who are you? Are there any Galra here?”

 

Finally, one of the aliens steps out from behind the rock. “I am called Mudrise. I am our King’s most trusted warrior!” they say, gesturing wildly. “I will take you to our village.” They’re tiny, yellow, and squishy looking, with one big, curling, brown horn atop their head. Other than that, this alien has pretty human proportions. They have a stone sword almost the same size as them in one of their hands, but they seem to totally forget that fact with the way they’re swinging their arms. Shiro can’t imagine them being anyone’s greatest warrior but keeps his mouth shut.

 

Mudrise keeps his promise though, and within an hour they’ve successfully guided him back to their village. He doesn’t stay long though; the King is obviously wary of his presence. Shiro probably would be too, if he was in their position. But he's not, so it just leaves him mildly annoyed. The King and his villagers are kind enough to point him to a giant castle not too far away, however. He figures he’d better get moving now if he wants to get there before sundown.

 

Luckily he still has light to work with by the time he gets there. It doesn’t help him much, though. He spends a good fifteen minutes trying to find a way to open the giant doors before he hears a loud roar and they slide open on their own. It takes another couple of minutes of him frantically looking around and pointing his knife threateningly at the air for him to realize that the roar was in his head.

 

Great. So now he’s going crazy, too.

 

He enters the castle, and as he steps into the foyer he’s surrounded by a square of blue light. He’s immediately on guard again, but holds still when a robotic voice says "Hold for identity scan." He doesn’t feel anything, so he supposes it’s alright. Once the scan is finished, a trail of torches lights up along one of the hallways, apparently guiding him somewhere.

 

A sentient castle isn’t the weirdest thing that’s happened to him today, so he follows.

### Hunk

It’s Hunk’s turn to move the fully grown crystals under the Balmera’s surface. As far as he knows, there aren’t any crystals on the surface. He’s gonna change that, though. Eventually.

 

For now, though, he’s content with something much smaller. It might not help Balmera now, but it sure is gonna stop the Galra. See, Hunk’s been hiding crystals. He started small, hiding handfuls of battery class crystals. Over the past few months he's graduated from those to power cell class, then escape pod, then ship class.

 

Now he stares down a battleship class crystal. Normally he wouldn’t even look at a crystal this size, but he was assigned to it, and it’s the last one of his shift. That means he can pretend to do the work with his partner, and then move it again once they’ve left since he won’t have anywhere else to be. Balmera’s been helping hide the other crystals, and he’s confident she could find a place for this one too.

 

The point is, it’s totally possible. Kinda. Maybe. He’s going for it.

 

Hunk is proud to say that for the first half an hour, it totally works! He and his partner, a tall and skinny Balmeran named Berg, manage to get the crystal to its correct spot within fifteen minutes. Berg never says anything to him and honestly? Hunk is totally fine with that. No minerals off his back. He does Hunk the favor of walking off the second their job is done, so he only waits a minute before hauling off his latest prize. The Balmera shifts around him, making him a more direct path to wherever she’s decided to hide this one for him.

 

The problem starts when he steps into the third cross tunnel.

 

Balmera does a lot for Hunk. Way more than she probably should. But she can’t cut off the tunnels that have been there for hundreds of years; the ones that the Galra have worn into her very being by patrolling them constantly. He stops and checks both sides before stepping out into the hallway, but putting down and picking up the crystal is starting to hurt his back. Really, carrying at all is starting to hurt his back, and he’s been doing that for a half hour at this point. He’s tired and stiff, and he just wants to be done with this already. His weariness makes him less thorough and less careful, and when he’s in the middle of the wide cross tunnel he hears the telltale “click, clack” of metal on stone from around the corner.

 

He hurries to the other side, dropping the crystal with a huff and plastering himself against the wall of the tunnel. He holds his breath and stays stock still. The sentries are dumb; as long as he’s still and silent they’ll look straight past him.

 

Unfortunately for him, the metal sound is coming from armor instead of robotic limbs. His anxiety skyrockets as the two soldiers walk past, but for a second it looks like he’s in the clear. He lets out the breath he'd been holding, chest heaving. Maybe that’s what makes one of them double back, maybe it isn’t. Either way, the guard shouts “HEY!” when he sees him, and Hunk runs as fast as his legs will take him.

 

He’s always been short by Balmeran and Galra standards, but he pushes his legs as hard as they’ll go, and with Balmera’s help he manages to get a lead on the guards. He doesn’t stop though, and instead lets Balmera guide him once again. He’s eternally grateful that she doesn’t abandon him after he gets caught. Instead, she guides him to the hangar the Galra have carved out inside of her.

 

He pauses for a quick second, surprised, but then he realizes that the guards are still right behind him. Without putting too much thought into it, he runs to the nearest fighter jet and climbs in. He’s never flown one of these, but he’s gonna have to figure it out really quick.

 

He hears banging on the side of his jet and someone yelling for him to get out. Well, this is either gonna end with them dragging him (and possibly his family) off to prison, or him taking this plane and getting out of here. Even though he has to figure out how to take off first. And get above ground. And not crash.

 

Screw it. He hopes his parents won't miss him too much.

 

←→

Through some absolute miracle, Hunk makes it out of Balmera’s atmosphere without dying or ruining his plane. It's his greatest achievement, really. He's convinced Balmera had some hand in it. But very soon Hunk realizes that he's gonna have to accomplish something even greater.

 

He's gonna have to find somewhere to go.

 

His mothers and grandma talked constantly about freedom. They were the only ones on Balmera who did. They spoke endlessly about being able to say (pretty much) whatever you wanted, to go wherever you wanted, to live with and love and celebrate with whoever you wanted. What they never told him about was the _lack of guidance_ that freedom entailed. He no longer had Balmera, or even the _Galra_ to tell him where the heck he’s supposed to go, or what to do to get there.

 

The other thing they didn’t tell him was that Galra fighter jets weren’t made to go far distances. By the end of the week he’s just about out of fuel. Luckily for him, that’s when he spots the blue and green planet. He angles his jet towards the seemingly peaceful planet, tapping a jaunty tune on the floor of the cockpit. He’s excited, okay? It’s the first celestial body he’s seen that wasn’t a star or an asteroid in a _week._ He really had no idea space was so _empty._

 

Landing is just as miraculously successful as taking off. The jet will probably never fly again, but that’s beside the point. The atmosphere is a little heavier here than on Balmera, but he’s not choking or anything, so that’s a plus in his book. Now he just has to figure out where to go from here. He saw a castle on his way down, and it doesn’t look like anything the Galra made, so he figures that’s as good of a place to start as any.

 

The trek to the castle from his ship isn’t particularly hard or challenging, but it still takes his breath away. There are plants _everywhere._ On Balmera there was only the occasional cave root that they used for dinner, but here there are thin, green plants under his feet, tall green and brown plants in large clusters off to the side, short green plants hiding in their shadows, and even smaller plants with green stems and colorful leaf-like things at the top. He didn’t even know plants could _be_ green, and now everything here is coated in it. It’s vibrant and bright and nothing like his home.

 

And don’t get him started on the castle. It humungous, a silver and white monument reaching towards the sky. The door is already open, so he lets himself in. “Hello?!” he calls, hoping to get a response. A place this big has to have some kind of guards or whatever, right?

 

He does get a response, in the form of a ring of blue light and a “Hold for identity scan.” He definitely does start yelling, but can you really blame him? That light came out of nowhere!  Well, it came out of the floor, but semantics. What really matters is the fact that the torches lining one of the hallways are lighting up, which is as good of an invitation as it seems he’s gonna get.

 

The torches lead him down several hallways and turns until he has no idea where he's been and where he hasn't. Eventually they stop lighting up at a door, so he assumes he's supposed to go in this room. The door slides open, and he sees an alien with broad shoulders and a white patch of fur at the front of his head holding a nozzle and a plate with green goo on it.

 

“Hello?” he says again. The alien whips his head up to look at him, seeming startled.

“Ahh!” he yells, then points the nozzle at him threateningly.

“AHH!” Hunk also yells, jumping back with his hands in the air. “PLEASE DON'T HURT ME!” That seems to give the alien pause, and he lowers the nozzle a bit. He still looks wary though, but Hunk doesn’t blame him. Hunk is still wary. Who knows what this alien is capable of? He’s already threatened him, and Hunk is unarmed.

“I’m not- I won’t hurt you.,” the alien says, apparently giving up on seeing Hunk as a threat. Hunk isn’t much of a threat, so hopefully they keep that attitude.

“Then put the weapon down!” Hunk says. Actively attacking or not, he’d feel better if he wasn’t the only one unarmed.

“Oh, this?” the alien asks. “This, uh. This isn’t a weapon,” they say, shrugging. Their face starts to turn red. Is he blushing? “It’s actually for food. Or, well, it’s edible.” Hunk’s stomach chooses that moment to make itself known, and loudly.

“Food? That would be nice,” Hunk says, earlier wariness mostly forgotten.

“Of course,” the alien says, smiling. “Grab a plate.” They nod their head over to a rack full of them. “The name’s Shiro, by the way.”

“Hunk,” he responds, and hurries to get a plate. The sooner he has some food in his stomach, the better. And if he just so happens to make a new friend in the process, who’s he to complain?

### Katie

So it turns out sneaking into the Garrison as a student isn’t any easier than sneaking in on her own.

 

It’s hard, and nerve-wracking, and annoying, and when Katie’s teammates decide they don’t have anything better to do than breathing down her neck all day, she can’t exactly tell them to fuck off because apparently they’re supposed to be _bonding._ Bonding her ass. Also, she had to lose most of her hair to do it. She’s still not really sure how to feel about that, but at least it’s growing back quickly.

 

The point is, when she gets kicked out, _again,_ she’s a very strange mix of exceedingly frustrated and unexpectedly relieved.

 

She’s not letting that stop her, though. She’s a Holt. Her family has a reputation for being annoyingly persistent, and she’s not gonna be the one to tarnish that legacy. She calls her mom when it happens, and with a little convincing (read: a helluva lot) manages to convince her mom to drive her out to the desert and let her investigate there. She might not’ve gotten much on her father and brother’s disappearance, but she saw more than a few files about _something_ out in the desert past the Garrison’s base. She doesn’t know what it is yet, but she’s gonna find out.

 

The Garrison called it Operation: Blue Lion, and she figures that’s not such a bad name. Operation: What the Hell is Blue Lion? is a go. With the help of her mom, her laptop, and a very convenient shack out in the desert, she’s up and running in no time.

 

Unfortunately, her productivity doesn’t last. Eventually she makes her mom go home because as much as she loves working with her, her mother is a lawyer, and a damn good one at that. She’s too busy to spend her time rooting through Garrison files and the notes left behind in the shack ex machina with her. Plus, Katie knows for a fact that her mother hasn’t been sitting idly by when it comes to the Garrison. Whatever she’s doing, that needs her attention just as much as this does, if not more.

 

Colleen Holt does eventually leave, but only on the condition that Katie has to call her every morning and every night, and that she’ll come check on her every Saturday. It’s a little annoying, but she gets it. Her brother and father have set a precedent that neither of them really want to continue.

 

After her mother leaves, she finds another roadblock: her (father’s) credentials aren’t enough to unlock any more files under the Blue Lion project. Well, they never were, but that’s beside the point. The thing is, at least half the files are so locked away that probably only Iverson and a select few from his inner circle actually have access to it. She could probably hack them easy peasy, but pushing too hard is what got her kicked out the first two times. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me thrice and, well, Katie is too smart for that.

 

So that leaves her last resource: the shack notes. Someone put up a conspiracy board in here filled with cave drawings, rock formations, and locations and directions for each one, as well as their possible significance. She has no idea who lived out here, but she’s eternally grateful for their thoroughness. Each cave has a corresponding journal with notes in it, but they’re pocket-sized and Katie is a voracious reader. Soon she’s read them all and made her own notes.

 

What she doesn't run out of are unexplored caves. There are a few caves that have cursory notes on them, but haven’t actually been explored by the shack’s previous resident. Luckily for her, they also left behind maps, coordinates, and caving gear. One of the caves has notes about lion carvings, so she figures that’s a good enough place to start. Her mom told her to wait for her before going to explore it, but she’s got nothing left to study and she’s way too impatient to do nothing for three days. Not when her dad and brother might be out there somewhere, going through who knows what.

 

So she leaves on her own, naturally. She takes the notebook for this cave, nutrition bars, water, the map with the cave marked on it, her phone, and an old bag she found in the shack. She won’t go into the cave itself yet, but she’s definitely gonna go see it for herself.

 

It takes her a few hours to finally reach the cave, and she collapses right inside the entrance once she makes it. She’s wiped, and has sand in _really_ uncomfortable places. This is why she doesn’t go outside. Still, she has a job to do, so she pushes herself up and dusts herself off as best she can. Just like the notebook said, this cave has carvings of a lion all over it. What the notebook _failed_ to mention was _just how many_ carvings there are. The walls of this cave are completely covered in them. They'd be impossible to miss, even if they weren't glowing blue from the minute she stepped into the cave.

 

She takes a few steps further into the cave to get a closer look at whatever the hell could make these carvings glow blue, and the ground gives way under her. She screams and tries to stop herself, but the passage down is covered in water and slippery, and all she gets is bruised hands for her trouble.

 

She lands in a pool of water at the bottom of the shaft, miraculously unharmed. She has no idea how, but just this once she's not gonna look the gift horse in the mouth. She has no idea how she's gonna get out of here though. So much for not needing that caving gear, she thinks, and then she sees it and that's the absolute least of her worries.

 

“Oh,” is all she can say. It's literally a blue lion. A giant, blue, mechanical lion. With a force field around it.

 

She gets up and walks towards it, mind reeling. It's. It's a giant lion. _How the Hell does it work?_ Who made this? Why? Questions form a whirlwind of curiosity in her head that sweeps away all other thoughts. Thoughts like _I should probably call my mom._ That is, until the giant lion moves, lowering both its head and force field. That's enough to scare her out of her reverie.

 

It's jaw opens and turns into a ramp. Realizing that it won't eat her (or, not without her permission, she guesses) she cautiously lets her curiosity take over again and walks up the jaw-ramp. She walks all the way to the back, where a small set of steps lead upwards.

 

There's a large room at the top of the steps. At least, the room would be large if more than half of it wasn't taken up by what looks like a rounded glass tank. Or a coffin, maybe. A really fancy coffin. She leans over the tank to see what's inside and- _holy shit there's a person in there._

 

### Lance

The first thing Lance registers as he awakes is that it is _very cold._ He's shivering, which is probably not how he fell asleep. Now that he thinks about it, he can't really remember falling asleep. That's a problem! He's done enough Paladin training (and seen enough movies) to know that if you wake up and don't know where you are, you should pretend to still be sleeping, so he does that.

 

Well, he tries to do that, but a very insistent finger keeps poking his cheek. “Hellooo? Is this dude alive?”

 

He opens his eyes, ready to tell the person to _not touch the merchandise,_ but they jump back before he even gets a word out. He sighs and sits up, groaning. He's unreasonably stiff, and soon he realizes why; he's sitting in a _cryopod._ Nothing good ever comes from waking up in a cryopod.

 

He looks around and recognizes the room behind the Blue Lion’s cockpit. Wait, “I'm in the Blue Lion?” That… can't be right. The cryopod was bad enough, but he's never in the Blue Lion alone. Even on the rare occasions that Blaytz let him fly, he'd always be right there beside him.

 

He gets up with a persistent sense of dread coiled in his stomach, sea legs in full effect. He stumbles to the Blue Lion’s chair, and she brings up her displays with a purr, but it's all wrong. It's still fond as usual, but it feels much stronger than the secondary connection he's always had with her, and it has mournful undertones. The sense of dread goes from being a garden snake to a boa constrictor.

 

Blue brings up a few displays, and he looks around. There's some pretty basic diagnostics, location… a planet called Earth? And the year… “What the hell?” Then she very helpfully informs him that it's been _ten thousand years since the Great War started._

 

Ten. Thousand. Years. Ten thousand years… Alteans can't even survive that long! Galra definitely don't! None of the Paladins could live that long, and he very suddenly understands why Blue’s connection with him is so loud. She gives him another mournful purr, and he knows there are no other cryopods inside of her or anywhere nearby. He probably won't find one, no matter where he looks.

 

Suddenly he's being punched in the shoulder. “HEY!” the person from earlier yells almost directly in his ear. It pulls him out of his head, and that favor is probably the only reason why he doesn't immediately start yelling back. He turns to get a good view of this person and is immediately nose to nose with a little girl. He'd assume she was Altean if it weren't for the rounded ears and lack of facial markings. He backs up, because apparently she has no idea what personal space is and he'd rather not _breathe her air._

 

“WHO ARE YOU, AND WHAT IS THIS? WHY. ARE. YOU. HERE?” she yells, sounding like someone who's probably asked that several times already. He feels a little bad for her. Except he totally doesn't, because he should definitely be the one asking that. Nevertheless, he humors her with a sigh.

“My name is Lance, I’m the page of the Blue Paladin of Voltron, this is the Blue Lion. Other than that… I don’t even know where _here_ is! Care to fill me in?” She just stares at him, which is dumb because Blue’s translator should’ve kicked in for her already.

“We’re in the desert. In a cave. Underground. We’re right outside the Garrison property.” she says. Which is great, except ‘Garrison property’ means absolutely nothing to him. He goes to tell her as much, but she puts up a hand and steamrolls right over him. “Nope, wait. I get that this is a blue lion, but why? What is it? What the heck is a Voltron?”

 

Blue saves him the no doubt agonizing trouble of trying to explain Voltron to her, and just shows them instead. He sees the five Lions coming together to form Voltron, its magnificent flaming sword pointing towards the heavens. He’s seen the Paladins form Voltron plenty of times before, both on T.V. and in person, and he comes out of the vision with a sense of pride welling in his chest. He looks over at the girl to see her still stunned.

“Whoa…”

“Yeah. _That’s_ Voltron.”

Her eyes sparkle with excitement. “This thing is only one part of it!”

“This _thing_ has a name. It’s the Blue Lion. Isn’t that right, girl?” he says, patting the pilot seat. His pilot seat. She purrs affectionately in response.

He sees an alert on his dash and sobers up. “That being said, who’re you?”

Katie extends her hand. “I’m Katie. Katie Holt.”

He shakes it. “Lance McClain.” Then he takes a closer look at that alert. _Galra._ “Well Katie, d’you have anywhere to be today?” he asks.

“...Nooo…” she answers, albeit a little hesitantly.

“Good.” He cracks his knuckles and stretches his arms. It’s mostly for dramatic effect, but he _is_ still a little stiff from the cryopod. Being frozen for ten thousand years will do that to you, he guesses. “I gotta get outta here. You can stay here, or you can come with.” He’s only actually flown Blue a handful of times, but he figures she doesn’t _really_ need to know that.

Katie still looks a little wide-eyed, but it doesn’t take her very long to make up her mind. For a matter of fact, she immediately says “I’m coming with,” grabbing his arm as if to dare him to leave her behind. He’s got no reason to, so she doesn’t have to worry.

“Awesome.” He grabs the controls, and busts through one of the walls of the cave, confident Blue can take it. “Let’s get this show on the road!”

 

### Keith

Keith is frustrated. Very frustrated.

 

He’s a foot soldier in the “great” Emperor Zarkon’s army. Which isn’t a problem for him! He’d be totally okay with a foot soldier’s job and level respect. He’s not exactly here for the money or the glory.

 

The problem is that Keith is a halfbreed. That’d be fine if he were a civilian on any of the planets under Galra rule, but he’s a soldier on one of the Empire’s many ships, so this fact is apparently a capital vrekking offense. He could probably _wreck_ more than half the soldiers on his ship. Except he can’t, because any act of aggression is immediately reported straight to Commander Sendak and treated like a large scale mutiny. He could roll his eyes at someone and end up cleaning every bathroom on this damn ship. The toilets have never looked as clean as they did that day.

 

And it doesn’t stop there. His peers are only ever following the example that Commander Sendak is all too happy to set. Making Keith’s life a living hell is practically that guy’s favorite pastime, besides whatever the heck he does with the Red Lion he found. He’s constantly cracking jokes at his expense, giving him absolutely useless assignments, and breathing down his neck, scrutinizing Keith’s every move.

 

Basically, Keith would absolutely love to punch Sendak.

 

That would be literally the worst idea, though. Keith doesn’t wanna know which airlock Sendak would jettison him out of for that one. So instead, he settles for the second worst idea. He’s gonna free the Red Lion. He knows it's still an awful idea, but at this point Keith doesn't even care. At least Sendak can't immediately punish him for it. He'd have to prove it was him first. Or just pull evidence out of his ass, but whatever.

 

He's in the middle of sneaking off towards the Red Lion’s special hangar when the ship rocks and the alarms start blaring. He checks his personal communicator to see what the heck is going on. Apparently the Blue Lion is leaving the atmosphere of the planet they've been orbiting recently? That's potentially horrible for the continued existence of this ship, but possibly _really good_ for his plan. He puts his communicator away. If he can free the Red Lion while everyone else is panicking about the Blue Lion…

 

He doesn't get more than a few steps before his communicator throws a goddamn hissy fit in his pocket. He takes it out to see what it's problem is.

 

Turns out the problem is a message from Sendak. He's wanted on the bridge. So much for freeing the Red Lion. He rushes there so he doesn't arouse suspicion.

 

“You're late, boy,” Sendak says anyway. He points to the ground next to him, and Keith walks over to take the spot. They're both standing in the middle of the ship's bridge, surrounded by view screens and frantic weapons operators.

 

He knows he's here because Sendak doesn't even trust him as far as he can throw him (which is understandable. His Commander could probably throw him very, _very_ far), but his new position gives Keith a perfect view of the battle raging outside. The Blue Lion’s pilot is either incredibly skilled or incredibly stupid, he thinks, as he watches them weave in and out of laser fire. The ship rocks again when the Lion lands on it, dragging its claws down the side of the hull, and once more as it returns fire with a blue laser.

 

Keith supposes he should feel afraid at this moment, but he feels nothing but awe. The fact that a ship that small can take on a fully armed battlecruiser like this… Whoever owns the Blue Lion is incredibly lucky, and not just because of Voltron’s legacy. It makes him more anxious to get rid of the Red Lion; someone like Sendak doesn't deserve a weapon as powerful or a ship as amazing as any of the Voltron Lions apparently are. Unfortunately, it seems like he's gonna have to wait. With the Blue Lion getting away, Sendak is going to be even more jumpy about his own prize, and Keith is just too convenient of a scapegoat to not be blamed for it. He'll have to lay low for now.

  
But he has _plans._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “And I, I can feel the pull begin  
> I feel my conscience wearing thin  
> And my skin  
> It will start to break up and fall apart  
> I don't wanna fall, fall away  
> I don't wanna fall, fall away  
> I'll keep the lights on in this place  
> 'Cause I don't wanna fall, fall away”  
> Fall Away- Twenty One Pilots
> 
> I just wanted to write a Voltron fic. But then chapter 1 ended up being 21 pages in Google Docs while I was just starting Keith’s section… dear god. What have I gotten myself into. I have a lot of really weird thoughts about this first chapter and Voltron in general (like Shiro’s god-like luck when it comes to crashes. How is this man still alive??), so you can ask me about them!  
> Huge thanks to Jasuem Fan! They’re the inspiration for Balmeran Hunk, and their Voltron edit are super amazing!! They’re also like half the reason I actually got this chapter out, instead of it gather dust as an idea on my writing shelf. Europa_report was also really encouraging, and their fic Goodnight, Travel Well is absolutely amazing! Other than that, I stole the Galran curse vrek from the Voltron: Duality series, which is also A+.


	2. Smells Like Teen Spirit

### Katie

Katie is in a fucking giant flying robot lion.

 

And from the way this guy is flying? _She's gonna die._

 

She screams as they duck and dodge, shrieking with her head tucked into the seat by Lance. “Hey, calm down! You’re gonna break my eardrums!” he yells back.

“STOP FLYING LIKE THIS! YOU’RE GONNA GET US KILLED!”

“If I stop then we’ll _definitely_ die, so deal with it!”

 

She tightens her grip on the back of the pilot seat and tries to even her breathing, reducing the chorus of terror to internal screaming instead. She feels Lance’s flying calm down, just as he says “Huh, looks like they're just chasing us now.” She slowly opens her eyes to see a stark white moon, but Earth is nowhere to be found…

 

“Holy shit, is that… is that Kerberos? That's Kerberos! It- it takes _months_ for our ships to get out here…” It took months for her _family_ to get out here. It took months for Sam and Matt Holt to disappear.

“Really?” Lance asks as he flies past Kerberos, completely unaware of her dilemma. “This is pretty normal for most ships,” he says, although there's a slight furrow in his brow now.

 

Katie doesn't bother asking about that. She wouldn't get the chance even if she wanted to since a giant blue disk of indeterminate material suddenly springs into life ahead of them. “Whoa! What is that?”

“That's a wormhole,” Lance says, looking thoroughly distracted.

“A wormhole?” Katie parrots, bouncing a little. Humans have had trouble proving wormholes even existed, and this alien can identify one right off the bat! She has so many questions but deems one to be more important than the others. _For now._ “to where?”

“I… I dunno. Hopefully home.” The apprehension in his voice makes Katie pause. She looks at Lance- really _looks_ at him now, and sees just how worried he seems. But if this wormhole can somehow help her find her family…

“...Well, there’s only one way to find out…”

“Right,” Lance agrees. “Here we go!” he thrusts the controls forward, and the world goes blue and then stark white as the Lion enters the wormhole and she’s forced to close her eyes.

When she opens them again, they've arrived at a lush and mostly untouched world. The only signs of intelligent life are a few scattered villages and a giant ivory castle, with one especially large central spire reaching towards the heavens.

 

“Well? Where are we?” she asks, because there's no way she's gonna believe somewhere this untouched created better tech than Earth’s.

“Still don’t know,” Lance answers at length. “A planet called… Arus? But it looks like the Castle of Lions is here.” He lowers the Blue Lion with much more grace than he took off with. “And it’s already open. C’mon!” Then he's out of the pilot seat, down the stairs, and out the Lion. She'd really rather not be left alone in an alien warship on an alien planet, so she huffs and runs after him.

 

When they get to the castle's foyer, they're both encircled in a square of pale blue light as a robotic female voice chimes “Hold for identity scan.” Soon after that, she says “Welcome Lance McClain, Blue Paladin of Voltron.” Lance grumbles something to her side that she can’t quite hear, then immediately starts jogging off again.

 

“This way!”

### Lance

He runs through the winding hallways and trusts Katie to follow him. He wants to get to the pod room in the heart of the castle. The castle halls are desolate, with no signs of life besides the automated torches that dutifully light his path. If anyone is still here, the pod room wouldn’t be such a bad place to start.

 

He skids to a stop in front of the pod room, and a few seconds later Katie thumps into his back, pushing them both inside. He looks up to see a Balmeran and what— according to the ears— must be another human. “Who’re you guys?” he asks. He expected Alteans, not aliens. The Balmeran yells and hides behind the human, who seems like he’s used to this by now. The human puts his hands up in a placating gesture.

“I’m Takashi Shirogane. This is Hunk Garrett. We kinda just… found this castle. So, sorry if it’s yours? We didn’t mean any harm,” he says, but he sounds put upon, which makes Lance’s brow furrow. Well excuse him, he’s the one trespassing! Lance is obviously the affected party here! “Just found this—”

“SHIRO?” Katie yells from behind him. What the hell is with this girl’s lungs? Everyone here obviously has working ears.

“K-Katie?”  he stutters, and lets out a quiet oof when she tackles him. “What are you doing out here?”

 

She begins babbling to Shiro about the Blue Lion, bouncing up and down excitedly. He knows his girl is pretty amazing, but she better not get any ideas. The recounting of their trip here quickly turns into an interrogation and soon Lance has no idea what they're talking about, so he checks out. He was really hoping to find some fellow Alteans here, but if those two aliens had been here and nothing happened… Well, whatever! The Castle is huge; it’s entirely possible that the Alteans are just in another room! And didn’t come to greet him. Or see what all the commotion in the pod room was… Right.

 

Instead of dwelling on that thought, he walks further into the room. He’ll just ask the others if there’s anyone else here later. For now, he’s content to just listen to them.

 

Or not, because as he gets closer to the pods, one of thee pods springs out of the ground. He totally does not squeak, but he does hear Hunk yell behind him again. The door opens with a _fwoosh_ to reveal a dark-skinned woman with stark white hair and an ornate dress and circlet. Is that—

 

“Father!” she yells as she falls forward, arm outstretched. Lance steps forward and catches her.

“Princess Allura?” he asks, a little shocked. She looks up at him a dazedly, still blinking a very, _very_ long sleep out of her eyes.

“Who are… Lance?” She stands up a bit straighter and leans on him less, furtively glancing around the room.

This is his moment. He gives her his most suave look, deepens his voice a bit, and says “The one and only. And you’re right here in my arms.” He thinks he hears someone groaning behind him, but his ears must be playing tricks on him. He’s too smooth for that.

Allura’s eyes snap back to him, but she’s giving him a blank look instead of swooning like he expected. Then they drift to the side of his head and land on his ears.“Your ears… What did you do to them?”

“What did I— ah! I pierced them!” he responds, wiggling them with pride. He has a long, gunmetal cuff wrapped around the cartilage of one ear connected by a chain to a matching set of studs, and he thinks they look _damn good._ No wonder she’d notice them!

“They’re… They’re hideous. What’s wrong with them?”

“Nothing!” he squawks indignantly, leaning forward and throwing his hands up. “They work perfectly fine; they heard exactly what you said about them!”

The princess reaches for one of his ears and he has no idea what happens, but somehow he ends up on the floor on his knees. She has one of his arms locked behind his back, and his ear in an unrelenting grip that she uses to tug his head back. “OWOWOW HEY! WATCH THE EARS— OW!”

“Lance, I don’t have time for this! Where is King Alfor? What are you doing in my Castle?” she leans down to demand in an ‘if you don’t comply right now you’re not gonna have an ear much longer’ voice.

“The Blue Lion brought me and the little one here! That’s all I know!” he whines back.

“How do you have the Blue Lion? What happened to its Paladin? What are you all doing here? Unless... How long has it been?”

 

She finally releases him and spins around, facing the control panel in the center of the room. He rubs his ear, standing up. He knows exactly how long it’s been, but he’s not gonna be the bearer of bad news. He’s been assaulted enough for one day. PLus, if Blue could tell him, then the Castle can tell her. Probably.

### Hunk

Hunk had no idea Alteans were still alive.

 

Yet here he is, on a planet far from home, in a completely foreign castle, with two very alive Alteans bickering in the room.

“We don’t know what you’re talking about,” Shiro says to the Altean lady once she releases the one that came barging in the room before and Hunk steps out from behind him, but still keeps his distance. “Or, at least, most of us don’t.” He nods his head towards Lance, who looks put out as he rubs his no doubt sore ear. “Why don’t you tell us who you are? Maybe we can help.”

She straightens up, still glaring a little. “I am Princess Allura of Planet Altea. I've got to find out where we are and how long we've been asleep.” She wastes no time walking towards the control panel and immediately places her hands on the pads on both sides of its face.

 

“Okay, that’s how that works,” the new human says. Katie? She stares at the holographic screen wide-eyed, which is most definitely weird. Most of the Empire’s computer systems work that way, and it’s apparently the same everywhere else if the Galra soldiers on Balmera are to be believed. He’s used to Shiro being taken aback by all of this castle’s systems, though. Maybe it’s a human thing.

 

Another pod whooshes open, drawing everyone but the Princess’ attention. A man with bright orange head and facial hair opens his eyes, then steps out of the pod.

 

Okay, so three Alteans now.

 

He looks to the side at Lance, then looks around the room at the rest of its inhabitants. His eyes grow to the size of dinner plates. “E-Enemy combatants! Lance, why aren’t you doing anything?!”

Lance just rolls his eyes at him, apparently in better spirits at this man’s arrival. “They’re not a threat, Coran.”

“Everyone is a threat, my boy!” he responds, just before doing some crazy flying leap at the other Altean. Is this just how they greet each other? Someone remind him to never say hi. Lance easily sidesteps the attack.

“Quiznak!” Coran curses, leaning on one of the cryopods for support. “You're lucky I have a case of the old Sleep Chamber Knees!” He straightens up again, turning to glare at Lance. “Otherwise, I'd grab your head like this, wrap you up like so and—One, two, three—" He says, emulating some sort of strange chokehold as he counts off on his fingers before snapping them in some new pose,  “—Sleepytime!”

“Well, before you did that, I'd—Hoo! Ha! Hiyah!” Lance responds, leaping and doing some high kicks and weird stances, “—Like that.”

“Oh, Really?! Well, how could you do that when I've already come at you with this?!” Coran throws back, crouching low and jabbing at the air. He accompanies the attack with a few high-pitched sounds that Hunk assumes are meant to disable the enemy even further.

“Man, these guys are good,” he says, legitimately impressed. He wonders if they’re willing to teach.

 

“This can’t be,” Allura gasps, sounding distressed. Hunk turns to face her, suddenly concerned for his safety. First the Alteans, now the castle?

“What is it?” Coran asks from behind him.

“We've been asleep for 10,000 years!” She looks panicked, and her eyes have the glaze of someone who’s not exactly with them right now.

### Allura

Suddenly she’s surrounded by fire instead of aliens and drowning in a familiar sense of impending doom instead of the strange semi-safety of just waking up.

 

“Zarkon,” her father spits from behind her, his voice filled with an unfamiliar malice. She’s been slowly getting used to it though. She wishes she wasn’t.

 

“Your fleet has been destroyed, Alfor. I will be there shortly to claim Voltron,” Zarkon boasts. She doesn’t want to think they’ve fallen this far, but the crackling, unstable image of Zarkon’s sneering face is enough evidence to prove it, even before taking into account the burning debris of their fallen soldier’s ships. He ends the transmission, then ends their ability to see the battle raging outside by destroying their outside cameras with a brilliant laser beam.

 

Allura turns to her father, angry and maybe just a little more than scared. Maybe even terrified, not that she’d let anyone else know that. A ruler should always show a brave face. "Father, we must form Voltron and fight before it's too late!” she yells.

“It's already too late.” he sighs, looking sad and weary and not at all like the pillar of strength she thought to be infallible not too long ago. She’s not too sure now. “We must send the Lions away. We can't risk them falling into Zarkon's hands.”

“We can't give up hope!” she yells as he steps off of the control dias and towards her, appalled by her father’s choice. He didn’t say it in as many words, but he had said it anyway. Who was this man standing before her, wearing her father's face but not his confidence?

“I'm sorry, daughter,” he says, wilting even more. “If all goes well, I will see you again soon.” He uses a bit of his quintessence to knock her out. It’s an advanced technique, one that no Altean would never use lightly. She never even dreamed that he would use it on her.

“Father...!” she calls. She doesn’t exactly hear his last words, but they sound like a blurred and distorted "I love you." How fitting. She passes out just before she hits the floor, and is forcibly ejected from the memory.

 

“Planet Altea and all of the planets in our solar system have been destroyed. Coran,” she says with tears prickling the corners of her eyes, whirling to face the man in question, “Father is gone. Our entire civilization…”

### Shiro

“Zarkon,” the princess spits, practically hissing. Just the name is enough to send him into his own head.

 

He only saw him for a short moment. He only caught a glimpse of the leader, ruler _dictator_ through a viewscreen, and the man never truly looked his way, but that peek at the purple rugged face was enough to strike fear deep into his bones and leave it there. If what the Princess said is true, then he only knows a quarter of the evil Zarkon is capable of, _if that._ That maybe-quarter is more than enough to make him want to tuck tail and run. He still has a huge blank patch in his memory, but he has a feeling Zarkon has well earned the fear. He’s not in much of a rush to remember any of it.

“Zarkon…?” he gasps.

“He was the King of the Galra. A vile creature and enemy to all free people,” she grinds out, like that’s the most polite version she can think of right now.

“I remember now... I was his prisoner,” he exhales, trying not to outwardly shiver.

“He's still alive? Impossible!” Allura whirls towards him, taking a step forward.

“I can't explain it, but it's true,” he says, putting up his hands. He doesn’t want to incur her wrath; she seems ready to turn the full force of it onto the next person to tell her bad news, and it looks like it’s still his turn. “He's searching for a superweapon called Voltron.”

“He's searching for it because he knows it's the only thing that can defeat him, and that's exactly why we must find it before he does,” she says, walking off like she’s just found a new purpose.

Well, he’s glad he can give her something, at least.

### Keith

Sendak doesn’t give Keith much freedom after the Blue Lion escapes.

 

He can’t tell exactly why, either. Was it his face? Did he do something suspicious? Did Sendak think the Blue Lion gave him ideas? ‘Cause it didn’t. The idea to go free the Red Lion is most definitely his own.

 

Either way, Sendak starts assigning him even more manual labor jobs than before. They’re real bottom of the barrel jobs, and he constantly has at least one the members of his new personal fan club watching him. He wonders if they all have weekly meetings to share their observations. Sendak is quite obviously the club president.

 

The only good thing about never having a moment completely to himself is that he still hears whispers of all the orders Sendak is trying his damnedest to not have him hear. Whispers of a surviving Altean float to his ears when people think they’re too dull to hear them. Perks of being a halfbreed: people _constantly_ underestimate you.

 

Apparently the Altean recently appeared out of nowhere, kind of like the Blue Lion did. Sendak says Zarkon himself requested she be captured, and she’s on a peaceful planet a few varga from here in something called the Castle of Lions. Basically, road trip. Soon the commander sets a course for planet Arus, with all hands on deck.

 

Except his, of course. But he doesn’t really mind, because it means his guard goes scampering off somewhere. No guard means no awful job, so he waits a minute or two before putting down his mop and bucket and doing some scouting of his own.

 

A castle full of Lions, huh? It’s sure to not end well if Sendak gets his hands on them. Keith promises himself he won’t let him. That just means he’s going to have to carry out this plan sooner rather than later.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Load up on guns, bring your friends  
> It's fun to lose and to pretend  
> She's over-bored and self-assured  
> Oh no, I know a dirty word  
> Hello, hello, hello, how low  
> Hello, hello, hello, how low  
> Hello, hello, hello, how low  
> Hello, hello, hello  
> With the lights out, it's less dangerous  
> Here we are now, entertain us  
> I feel stupid and contagious  
> Here we are now, entertain us  
> A mulatto, an albino, a mosquito, my libido  
> Yeah, hey”  
> Smells Like Teen Spirit- Nirvana
> 
> I haven’t really figured out Keith’s voice yet, so he kinda just has the default character voice for someone who I’ve written to be completely put upon. May change later; we’ll have to see. Looking at the way he speaks in the entire first episode, I’d say it’s not that far off from his real voice. I could totally see this Keith saying “We could toss out some non-essential weight.”


	3. Seven Devils

### Shiro

The Princess has been hunched over the Bridge’s console ever since she found out Zarkon was still alive. Shiro is starting to worry about her, but her advisor is right there. That’s his job, not Shiro’s. Although she did refuse his request to eat… somehow the plate full of food goo ended up in Hunk’s stomach instead. Shiro can’t say he’s that surprised, though.

 

“I can’t believe your civilization created such advanced technology 10,000 years ago. It must have been an incredible place," he says, trying to distract her a little. Then he realizes what he just said and cringes internally.

"Yes, it was... but now it is gone and we're the last Alteans alive." Coran is the one to respond this time.

 

He watches as Allura seems to curl in on herself a bit as she hugs herself, and soon Coran walks over and puts his hand on her shoulder to catch her attention before pulling her to his chest and tuck her head under his chin. What he misses is the way Lance looks away and also makes to hug himself, catches himself doing it, and throws down his hands again.

 

Allura’s ears twitch and she lifts her head to look around like she’s trying to find something. She pulls away from her advisor, makes her way over to the cryopod she came out of, and kneels down in front of it. “Looks like we’re not the last, after all,” she says as she reaches into the pod. When she stands back up there are four tiny, colorful mice cupped in her hands.

 

Then the castle’s alarm blares, scaring them all. The mice crawl up Allura’s arm to hide behind her as an image of a giant ship appears in the Castle’s notifications. “A Galra battleship has set its tracker to us!” Coran yells, running up to the control panel, with Allura not far behind.

“How did they find us?!” she yells back.

“I dunno,” Lance says, stepping closer to the control panel, but not by much. “I don’t think I saw anything Galra in Blue’s cave, so I doubt they were tracking her. Katie, did you see anything?” he adds, turning towards her.

“Uh, I didn’t see anything besides writing on the cave walls. I’m pretty sure they were all about the Blue Lion, though?”

“Well,” Shiro starts, this is no time for speculation, it’s time to work as a team. How long before they arrive?”

“At their speed?” Coran answers, mumbling under his breath as he counts off on his fingers, “I’d say probably a couple of days?” He has no idea how whatever the man just did adds up to a couple of days, but he trusts him. He obviously knows much more about life past the Sol system than Shiro does either way.

“Good! Let them come!” Allura says, a look of determination on her face. “By the time they get here, you four will have reformed Voltron, and together, we will destroy Zarkon’s Empire!” He figures that’s a pretty lofty goal, but who is he to burst her bubble?

Hunk interrupts the conversation with a loud burp. “Sorry! Food goo,” he says, sheepishly.

 

Shiro… reconsiders.

 

“Princess, there are five of these Lions. How are we going to find the rest?”

“Don’t worry, I’ll take care of that.”

 

They soon find themselves on the bridge, with Allura taking her place on the central platform.

“King Alfor connected the Lions to Allura's life force,” Coran explains while Allura concentrates. “She alone is the key to the Lions’ whereabouts.” A legion of blue dots expands from the center to cover the whole room, twinkling and swirling as they go. Each has it’s own alien symbol inside of it, denoting… something.Either way, they’re beautiful. Apparently, everyone else agrees if the chorus of surprised noises that follows is anything to go by.

 

“These are coordinates!” Katie exclaims. “The Black Lion looks like it’s in the same location as the Blue Lion!”

“Look at your primitive synapses firing away in their little brain-case!” Coran beams at her. Shiro really doesn’t think he meant for it to come out that condescending, but Katie furrows her brow anyway. Allura cuts in before she gets a chance to respond, though.

“Very observant. That’s because the Black Lion is in the Castle.” Allura smiles at her warmly, and Katie seems to blush a little. “As you have found, the Lions choose their pilots. It is a mystical bond and cannot be forced. The Quintessence of the pilot is mirrored in his Lion. Together, they form something greater than science can explain,” she adds, then begins fiddling with the hologram before them. The Black Lion appears and bounds towards Shiro. “The Black Lion is the decisive head of Voltron. It will take a pilot who is a born leader and in control at all times, someone whose men will follow without hesitation. That is why, Shiro, _you_ will pilot the Black Lion.”

 

In control at all times? He probably wouldn’t be here if he were in control at all times. Sam would be with him. _Matt_ would be with him. Katie wouldn’t be in space. Not yet, anyway.

 

Then he looks around at the others. He’s surrounded by teenagers— _children,_ in Katie’s case. These are all just a bunch of kids. They’ll need a leader. They’ll need someone who _seems_ in control at all times. So he’ll do his best.

 

The Princess swipes again, sending a newly materialized hologram of the Green Lion to Katie’s side. “The Green Lion has an inquisitive personality and needs a pilot of intellect and daring. Katie, you will pilot the Green Lion.” The girl smiles at the hologram. Shiro can’t wait to see her face when she sees it in person.

 

Another swipe and the Blue Lion moves towards Lance. “The Blue Lion—”

“Takes the most handsome/best pilot of the bunch, obviously!” Lance says, giving Allura a sultry grin that practically twinkles. She sends him back a _look_ before quite obviously ignoring him. He sulks as she turns her attention elsewhere.

 

“The… Yellow Lion is caring and kind.” She sends the Yellow Lion Hunk’s way, forcing herself to get back on track. “Its pilot is one who puts the needs of others above his own. His heart must be mighty. As the leg of Voltron, you will lift the team up and hold them together.” Hunk looks a bit panicked, before pointing to himself with a disbelieving finger. From what he’s told Shiro, Hunk definitely has it in him. It takes a lot to abandon your home, especially for the sake of someone else. Shiro will have to make sure Hunk knows that he’s well suited to the role, but that can happen later.

 

Allura’s brow furrows as the Red Lion materializes in her cupped hands. “The Red Lion is temperamental and the most difficult to master. It's faster and more agile than the others, but also more unstable. Its pilot needs to be someone who relies more on instincts than skill alone.” She sends it over to the space between Lance and Shiro, where it seems to float questionably in the air.

“Great. The perfect Lion to _not have a pilot for,”_ Lance quips, a little irritation seeping into his voice. Shiro can’t help but agree.

“Unfortunately, I cannot locate the Red Lion’s coordinates yet,” Allura says, ignoring Lance again. She’s not making the Voltron argument any more realistic, though. “There must be something wrong with the Castle. After 10,000 years, it…. might need some work.”

“Don't worry, we'll find it soon. They don't call me ‘The Coranic’ for nothing. It's because it sounds like ‘mechanic.’ So... Coranic, mechanic. It's not— It doesn't sound... exactly like it. It's similar."

 

Everyone kinda just stares at him for a second.

 

Allura clears her throat. “And, like… Lance… said,” Allura begins, eyes swiping over Lance like she’d really rather not fuel his ego, “I cannot locate a Paladin for it at this moment either. However, I’m confident that problem will resolve itself like it has with the four of you. Sooner rather than later, preferably.”

 

With that, all five Lions bound forward and form a giant robot in the shape of a man. A magnificent image of the real thing superimposes itself over the hologram, and a low rumble in the back of his mind tells him that this is Voltron.

 

“Once all the Lions are united you will form Voltron, the most powerful warrior ever known. The _Defender of the Universe.”_

“Awesome!” Lance beams, seeming to gain some of his enthusiasm back.

“Whoa…” Katie gapes beside him, similarly excited.

“Wait. Okay, we're going to be in there and flying Lions. Got that part. How do Lions turn into legs? Also, is this going to be a long trip? Because I have to pee. Do you people pee?"

Shiro… isn’t surprised by this reaction. After spending the last week with the Balmeran, Shiro knows it takes pretty dire situations to get Hunk to do anything even remotely dangerous, despite his obvious selflessness.

"You know we don't have much time,” he says instead. Hunk deflates a little, but it’ll have to do. “Katie and I will go after the Green Lion. Lance, you take Hunk and get the yellow one.” Lance grins and throws him a thumbs up. He’ll take two of three enthusiastic crew members. “Princess, if you find the Red Lion… tell us, if you can. We’ll try our best to hurry back.” He can’t guarantee they’ll be able to help— hell, he can’t even guarantee they’ll succeed in getting their own Lions— but at least it’s something.

“Right,” she agrees but looks a little skeptical herself. "In the meantime, I'll get the Castle's defenses ready. They'll be sorely needed."

“I'll ready a pod and load in the coordinates so that you can reach the Green Lion!” Coran adds before running off.

 

It’s not long before Shiro is sitting in a small, nondescript pod with Katie next to him. He’s almost afraid that she’ll start fiddling with the programming if he looks away for too long. She wouldn’t be the first Holt to mess with their plane mid-flight.

 

Lance flies the Blue Lion to their left, escorting Hunk to whatever planet they’ve been assigned. This is the first time he’s seen a Lion up close, and they’re _gigantic,_ even from so far away. No amount of holograms or strangely convenient visions could do it justice.

 

“We can only keep the wormholes that lead to the other Lions open for two of your Earth hours, so you'll have to be quick about your work,” Coran says, with his usual cheer. “The good news is that according to my readings, both planets are relatively peaceful. So, if you do get stuck, they could be relaxing places to live out the rest of your lives. Enjoy the trip!"

 

He frowns. That would’ve been nice to tell them beforehand.

 

“Wait—” Katie says, as she turns to him with a mild panic in her eyes.

“Oh great, I forgot about that,” Lance mutters over the comm.

“I did not receive the memo on this.” Hunk finishes, just before they enter the wormhole.

### Katie

The wormhole dumps the pod out around another lush planet, but this one is less grassy plains and more actual rainforest. There are jungles as far as the eye can see, and it just so happens that she can see a lot from outer space.

 

Oh. Joy.

 

She lets Shiro push all the branches and leaves and way-too-big fauna out of the way, and focuses on the compass that Coran gave her before they left. It’s supposed to be tuned to the Green Lion’s coordinates, but so far they’ve only seen more and more greenery. That is until they finally break out of the brush to find a sandy lake sparkling in the midday sun. It’d be pretty if she were at all into nature.

 

At the edge of the lake is a small canoe with what looks like a lion head carved into its bow. At least she has actual confirmation they’re in the right place now. She nudges Shiro and points to where it’s resting on the shore. “Look!”

 

When she finally turns to look up at him, there’s a giant sloth-man-thing standing casually beside them. Her heart leaps into her throat and she leaps with it, straight up Shiro’s back. He flinches himself, but the sloth-man doesn’t seem to pay them any mind. When he makes his slow way over to the canoe, Katie concludes that the thing must be harmless and climbs back down.

“I… I think he wants us to get in his canoe.”

Shiro just shrugs. “Then I guess we should go.”

“What?” she balks, whipping her head towards him.

“Hey, I’ve been locked up by aliens for a year. This is practically nothing.”

 

She remembers Shiro being someone willing to go along with Matt’s flow, but this is a little ridiculous. But if Shiro thinks they should just get in, then maybe it’s not so bad of an idea? Aliens really aren’t her area of expertise— not yet anyway.

 

That’s how she ends up in the third alien vessel of the day, except this ride is a lot less heart attack inducing than the others.

 

“I wonder if Hunk and Lance are having as good a time as us,” she asks, partly to Shiro and partly to the mild breeze brushing past her face.

### Hunk

Hunk has never seen a Lion in person before. They’re pretty cool! At least they would be if Lance wasn’t the one driving.

 

“AHHHHHHHHH!” they both scream, as Lance flies into a corkscrew to try to avoid laser fire.

“I thought this planet was supposed to be peaceful!” He thought escaping from the Balmera was hard, but this is on a whole ‘nother level.

“Maybe peaceful means something else to Coran!”

 

Hunk feels bile rising in the back of his throat, and tightens his grip on the back of Lance’s chair to stop himself from doubling over. With the way the mission is going, there’ll be puke all over this cockpit by the time this ride is finished.

 

“Can’t you keep this thing straight?” he moans, once he feels like he can open his mouth without projectile vomiting everywhere. He’s been on an operational ship literally once before, and this is the absolute worst second experience anyone could ask for.

Lance’s face twitches. “Relax,” he says with a high-pitched laugh, obviously not relaxed himself, “First year of Paladin training, you know what they called me? The Tailor, because of how I _thread the needle.”_ He narrowly avoids being shot out of the sky by the constant barrage of lasers surrounding them.

Hunk just moans again, feeling far too sick to tell him exactly how _awful_ that was.

“C’mon buddy, if you vomit in my Lion then I’m gonna eject you.” Another stream of lasers forces Lance to jerk Blue closer to the ground, and he angles himself to partially face Hunk. “Actually, I’m gonna eject you anyway!”

“Wait what?” Hunk sweats as he sees Lance reach for some new handle on Blue’s control panel. “Oh no, nonononon-”

“Hey, you can take it! Balmerans are tough as nails, right? Go get that Lion!” Lance says, before _ejecting him from a moving ship._

 

He tumbles across the ground and, by some incredible miracle, manages to not throw up all over himself. He comes to a stop at the entrance to the mine and immediately starts fiddling with the wires inside the lift, muttering about the _absolute betrayal_ that just took place. He thought they were friends! Friends don’t _jettison each other out of giant robot lions mid-flight!_

 

His moms used to sneak him broken Galra equipment to tinker with all the time, so getting the lift started is a piece of cake. It’s so _slow_ once he gets it started though, and the sound of lasers hitting the entrance to the mine doesn’t fade nearly as fast as he’d like. He finally gets to the bottom, after what feels like a thousand years. He steps forward out of the lift, and the cave is suddenly filled with the glowing light of several yellow carvings on the walls.

 

“Huh.”

 

One carving, in particular, is a giant circle on the wall, like a huge bullseye. If there’s anyplace this Lion would be, it might as well be behind it.

 

“But how…” He looks around, spotting a giant drill off to the side. “Aha!”

### Katie

As their little canoe cruises along, Katie finds herself lost in her own head.

“I know the Princess said that this is supposed to be my Lion, but what if she's wrong?” she asks no one in particular, beginning to pick at her nails. “I mean, she's probably not wrong. She's a princess, but I'm not a pilot, even though... I've always wanted to be a pilot.” she adds as an aside, but the doubt is quick to come back. For every new question she gives voice to, two new ones take its place.

 

She’s grateful when Shiro stops her because she probably couldn’t’ve done it herself. “You're rambling. Listen... Our commander on the Kerberos Mission is the smartest man I ever met, and he always said, ‘If you get too worried about what could go wrong, you might miss a chance to do something great.’”

She remembers her father saying that every chance he got, whether as encouragement or an excuse when one of his household experiments went awry. Her mother always did lament that she and Matt got their recklessness from him. The thought makes her smile.

 

Plus… she’s grateful for the present tense.

 

The canoe slows down along with her previously-racing heartbeat, and Katie looks up to see that they’ve arrived at a giant stone pyramid covered in vines. If this doesn’t house a giant robot lion… well, she’d rather not search this entire jungle planet for one marvel of post-modern technology, so she really frickin hopes this houses a giant robot lion. The Blue Lion was already plenty amazing, so she can’t wait to see what the Lion that chose _her_ is like.

 

She turns to beam at Shiro, practically bouncing in her seat. He returns a fond smile that wouldn’t be too lost on her own father’s face. “Go. Be great.”

 

She takes that as her cue and runs towards up the temple once their canoe docks, climbing and scurrying over vines. As she gets closer to the top, she feels a sense of intense elation that she can’t quite attribute to her own excitement wash over her. By the time she reaches the peak of the temple, she’s practically giddy.

 

“Whoo-hoo-hoo!” she whoops, jumping straight into the heart of the temple. She immediately feels the answering roar of the Green Lion as it rushes up to meet her.

 

Bursting out of the temple together like a couple of badasses is gonna be the highlight of her _week._

### Lance

It’s when Lance and Blue skid to a stop in front of what used to be the cave entrance that he finally accepts that he’s _completely boned._ This is it. His first real mission as a Paladin and he’s gonna die. Blue’s tail laser is sparking, her responses are sluggish, and he has an armada of warnings taking up the entire bottom corner of his viewscreen.

 

Out of the swarm of Galra fighters that have been dogging him two missiles fire in his direction. Blue growls in his mind and hunkers down. It’s not gonna do much since there’s no way her armor would be able to absorb a hit like that at this point, be he appreciates the effort, even as he squeezes his eyes shut and braces for impact himself.

 

He hears the explosion and can see the light of the inferno behind his eyelids, but he never feels any of the fiery death that’s supposed to come with it. When he finally does slowly crack his eyes open, he instead finds the massive figure of the Yellow Lion standing radiant and proud and mostly unscathed in front of him.

 

Then his savior goes and belly flops on a flock of fighter jets, crushing them all. Absolutely majestic.

 

“Lance! Are you okay?” Hunk asks as soon as his face appears on Lance’s dash amid the plethora of alarms and alerts he muted earlier, and Lance could honestly cry right now.

“Hunk! Buddy! I thought you were dead!” he replies, voice watery with unshed tears.

“Yeah, no thanks to you,” Hunk grumbles under his breath, apparently complete blind to Lance’s antics. Whatever, as long as they can finally get outta this place Lance is satisfied.

“Time to go?” he asks, giving one last glance to Hunk's face on his dash.

“Yes please!” the Balmeran immediately responds, taking off just as quickly as he spoke.

### Allura

When she sees Shiro and Katie come back through their wormhole, she closes it and makes Coran wipe away the sweat that’s formed on her brow. Keeping open two wormholes while also reaching out for the Red Lion has been taxing, but they don’t need to know that. After all, she has to make a good first impression! Or, well, second impression. The two walk back onto the bridge, one with a huge grin and the other a fond smile. Their mission must’ve gone well then.

 

“Where’s Lance and Hunk?” Katie asks.

“No word from them yet. Hopefully, they’ll be here soon… Ah, there they are!” she says, as the Blue and Yellow Lions come careening through their own wormhole. She quickly closes it behind them, glad that she no longer has to expend the energy.

“You made it,” she beams, as Lance and Hunk stumble their way into the Bridge.

“Yeah, just barely! That was a nightmare. I almost puked out there,” Lance groans. Then he turns to the Balmeran next to him. “I felt like Hunk!”

“Think how I felt,” he grumbles back. “I _am_ Hunk.”

“Yeah... We had a tough time, too,” Katie says, sharing a knowing look with Shiro.

 

Allura smiles at the two pairs of Paladins. If they already get along this well, they should have no trouble forming Voltron! Well, almost no problem.

 

“Did we find the Red Lion yet?” Shiro asks, quick to get back on task.

“Allura just located it,” Coran chirps. “There's a bit of good news and bad news. The good news is, the Red Lion's nearby. The bad news is, it's onboard that Galra ship now orbiting Arus.” He lights up in what Allura has come to recognize as a eureka moment. “But wait, good news again. We're Arus!"

“They’re here already?” Shiro asks, eyes wide and disbelief evident in his tone.

“Yes, guess my calculations were a bit off. Finger counting is more of an art than a science, y’know? ...Ha.”

As if on cue, a transmission opens itself at the front of the Bridge. Suddenly the entire viewscreen is filled with the purple visage of a large Galra in Empire armor with one large glowing orange eye. It makes her wonder what he had to do to get the original one replaced with _that._

“Princess Allura, this is Commander Sendak of the Galra Empire. I come on behalf of Emperor Zarkon, Lord of the Known Universe. I am here to confiscate the Lions. Turn them over to me, or I will destroy your planet,” is all he says, before the transmission cuts just as abruptly as it began.

 

She turns back around to look at her Paladins, and it occurs to her just how much of a ragtag bunch they are. Shiro looks much paler than when the transmission began, Katie’s small fists are clenched so tight Allura worries that she might make herself bleed, Lance has crossed his arms in a poorly-veiled self-hug, and Hunk is vibrating with nervous energy. She’s used to seeing nothing but bravery from the Paladins of Voltron, but their reactions only add to her nerves this time around.

“Okay,” Shiro at least tries, "Let’s not panic.”

 

“Not panic?” Hunk shoots back immediately. “T-the big scary Galra is driving his battleship straight for us! We only have four Lions!”

“Three technically,” Katie mutters from Shiro’s side.

“That’s right. Thank you, Katie. Three working Lions and a- a Castle that’s, like, 10,000 years old!”

“Actually, it’s 10, _600_ years old!” Coran pipes in, always willing to tell a story. “You see, it was built by my grandfather—”

“Thanks, Coran,” Hunk cuts him off, and probably for the better. _Thank you_ for that. See Shiro? Now is the _perfect_ time to panic!”

“Wait!” she interjects, trying trying to stop this rolling stone. She doesn’t need four panicked Paladins; they’d be absolutely useless to her. “The Castle has a particle barrier we can activate!”

 

Lance opens his mouth with one of his signature ‘I think I’m hot shit’ looks on his face, and Allura has heard enough about the former page to have an idea of what’s coming next. She glares him into submission instead, and he wilts.

Shiro looks between them with a raised eyebrow but lets it pass. “Sounds great. How long will that last?”

“Well,” Coran starts and holds up his fingers again, dropping them when Shiro glares pointedly, “not forever. Sendak’s ship has an ion cannon, and there’s no telling how long the particle barrier can hold against whatever level Galra technology is at now.”

“Great, panic now?” Hunk might look smug if he weren’t already so scared.

“No Hunk. We just need a plan. Panic will get us nowhere.”

“Sure, I have a plan!” Lance says. “We get in the Lions, open a wormhole, and get outta dodge!” He makes a blasting-off motion with his arm.

“Yeah! I mean we tried, right? We don’t have enough Lions to form Voltron, and that ship looks really big. We could always find the lions later!”

“It’s settled then,” Lance says, as he walks towards Allura’s platform. “I’ll take the princess.” He winks at her. “One of you take Coran, “he says, jabbing a finger her (father’s) advisor’s way. The man in question narrows his eyes at him.  
“Wha— It’s _not_ settled!” Katie interjects. “We can’t just abandon Arus!”  
“If we leave they’ll follow us, like when we left Earth. Two birds with one stone,” Lance shoots back.

“We don’t know if that’s true though! Maybe they didn’t need anything else from Earth, but if we go we’d leave the Black Lion behind, and what’s to stop them from taking it?”

“A ten-thousand-year technological difference?” Katie states, arms folded and eyes narrowed. “A lot more time? A _general disregard for the wellbeing of the castle?”_ Allura can see this coming to blows very quickly.

“O-oh yeah? Well, this is a democracy and you’re outnumbered!” Lance says, throwing his arms up.

“What?! What do you—” Katie begins, then looks at Hunk who raises his arm sheepishly. “ _Aargh!_ Shiro,” she growls, whirling on the older man. “What do you think?”

“Well, they’re your Lions, princess. What do you think we should do?” He responds, expertly dodging the question. The only issue is that he puts it off on her instead.

 

“We… We should…” she begins, torn. She wants to stay and fight, but it’s obvious most of her Paladins want no such thing. But if they don’t, what will happen to Arus? What will happen to the Castle of Lions, and the Black Lion locked deep within it?

She closes her eyes and takes a deep breath to settle herself. When she opens them again, she’s made her decision. “We will stay and fight. If we run away here, where we have a home-field advantage, we will be stuck running away forever. And Voltron should _not_ run away.” It’s what got them into this mess in the first place, after all.

Katie lets out a small “hah!” and Hunk groans, but Lance stays completely silent as he looks at her with something unreadable on his face. His piercing eyes make her uncomfortable, so she looks to Coran instead, who is giving her a proud smile. It makes her heart swell, and she smiles back.

Shiro nods. “Then we just need a plan. Someone will have to distract the Galra, while someone else goes to get the Red Lion.”

“She’s temperamental,” Allura reminds them. “Shiro, as the pilot of the Black Lion and head of Voltron, she’s most likely to listen to you if anyone.”

“Okay, but I don’t have a way to get up there.”

“I’ll take you,” Katie offers, raising her hand. “The Empire has already seen Blue and Yellow, but they have no idea we have Green too.”

“Right,” Shiro says. “Lance, Hunk, if you two pretend to give up your Lions, that should give us the cover we need.”

“O-of course. Straight back to the Galra,” Hunk grumbles, wringing his hands.

“We’re on it. Let’s hope this works,” Lance says.

### Keith

Naturally, Keith finds himself back at the command center of the ship. It’s not like he _wants_ to be anywhere near Sendak, it’s just that information doesn’t exactly leak through the walls in this place. Well, it does sometimes, but not the kind of detailed information he’s looking for right now. He hides right outside the open door and peeks his head around to see what’s going on inside.

 

There’s a viewscreen open with an image of a dark-skinned Altean woman with pink markings, a gold circlet, and snow-white hair. She looks displeased and honestly? Keith can’t blame her. He’d be pretty pissy too if he had the entire Empire after him.

 

“I am here to confiscate the Lions. Turn them over to me, or I will destroy your planet,” he hears Sendak say just before he cuts the transmission. _Yeah right._ Sendak is exactly the kind of person to destroy the planet no matter what. He hopes that lady is smart enough to know that. Either way, she’ll probably appreciate having her Lion back.

 

His plan is pretty simple: sneak into the Red Lion’s hangar while everyone else is busy at the guns, set it free, get very, very far away from its hangar, and hope that Sendak isn’t stupid enough to stick around and fight a full set of Voltron Lions.

One of his ears twitches, and he ducks into the shadows just as another soldier comes running into the control room.

 

Well, no time like the present, right?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Holy water cannot help you down  
> A thousand armies couldn't keep me out  
> I don't want your money  
> I don't want your crowd  
> See I have to burn  
> Your kingdom down  
> Holy water cannot help you now  
> See I've had to burn your kingdom down  
> And no rivers and no lakes can put the fire out  
> I'm gonna raise the stakes, I'm gonna smoke you out  
> Seven devils all around you  
> Seven devils in my house  
> See they were there when I woke up this morning  
> I'll be dead before the day is done  
> Seven devils all around you  
> Seven devils in your house  
> See I was dead when I woke up this morning  
> I'll be dead before the day is done  
> Before the day is done”  
> -Seven Devils by Florence and the Machine
> 
> Fun fact: Shiro spent a lot of hours around Sam and Matt Holt, and occasionally Colleen and Katie when he met them for dinner instead of in a lab or prep room. He’s a pacifist out of self-preservation, not because of some serene duty to the world.


	4. Saying Goodbye

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took so long! My school is just starting the second term, which means we just finished all of our midterms and term projects. Also, there were a lot of firsts for me in this chapter. Hopefully you can’t tell, but I’d appreciate any feedback if you can.

### Katie

“Before you go,” Allura says, stepping down from her pedestal, “I have something for you.”  She looks calmer now that they’ve decided to take action instead of tucking tail and fleeing, and Katie is glad for her fighting spirit. She steps out of the bridge and down a few hallways to a nearby room, and everyone falls in line behind her with varying degrees of reluctance.

 

As Allura steps into the room, five cases full of primary-colored armor are suddenly illuminated. “That is your Paladin armor,” she states, and they all move to get suited up as she walks over to a raised rectangular platform, placing her hands on it. _Not a platform,_ Katie soon realizes, _a case._ As the top slides open three oddly shaped handles float out of the case, also color-coded. “And these are your bayards,” Allura finishes, sounding quite pleased. Lance walks over to grab his, and motions Hunk over with a grin plastered on his face. As soon as it’s in his hand, it transforms into what looks like a toy rifle, but must not feel like one from the way he hefts it, his smile growing impossibly wider. “Hell yeah,” Katie hears him whisper as she walks over, watching him making fake shooting motions with what is probably a very real gun.

 

Instead of focusing on Lance’s gun safety, she watches Hunk instead. His bayard transforms into a massive cannon whose end he promptly drops, unprepared for its sheer size. Once he knows what he’s dealing with though, he seems to heft it with relative ease, despite still looking unhappy about its nature. Hey, if he doesn’t want it she’s glad to pick it apart for him. She doesn’t know how happy that’ll make the princess, but she’ll worry about that after she gets a look at the code for _just about everything_ in this castle.

 

When she reaches for her own Bayard, a small green energy blade shoots out the rounded end. Small, compact… she swings the blade through the air experimentally. Potentially dangerous…

 

“Aww,” Lance coos, sidling up beside her, “You have a cute little bayard, don’tcha?” She swiftly directs the blade into his gut, where it electrocutes him with the fury of a weapon scorned. And resourceful.

“Yeah, cute.” She replies, feeling smug. This thing is gonna be her new best friend. Besides Green, of course.

 

“I apologize Shiro, but the Black Bayard left along with its last Paladin. You can take the Red one with you, although I’m not sure how useful it will be to you at this point.”

Shiro accepts the Bayard from her. “Thanks. I’ll make do.”

“Very well. Now hurry, we don’t have that much time,” she says, sending them off to their Lions.

 

Shiro is stock still and steely for most of their ride up. Katie has to spend half that time working with Green to make sure they can latch onto the underside of the battleship, leech-like and unseen, but when she looks over to him it seems as if he's barely moved an inch. “Aw, do I not get to be on the receiving end of a ‘what if they don’t like me’ speech?” she taunts.

He finally turns and gives her a shaky but rueful grin. “Nope. I can think to myself, unlike some people.” She laughs at the jab, and he relaxes a bit. There’s no way this could go wrong.

“We’re ready when you are,” Lance crackles through the comms.

“Ready,” she shoots back.

### Lance

There are a million and one ways this could go wrong. Lance knows; he’s counted them all. At least five of those involve him or Hunk or _both of them_ just having a heart attack on the spot, but he’s trying not to let those show on his face. Or in his voice, for that matter.

 

“Ready when you are,” he says through the comms, because screw it, right? They’re here now.

“Ready,” comes Pidge’s speedy response, a smile in her voice. _At least one of us is happy,_ he thinks bitterly, but then takes it back, because she’s going directly into a Galra battleship. He doesn’t exactly envy her. One look at Hunk’s face tells him that he will never _ever_ be ready, so instead, he says “Hailing Galra battleship,” and opens a direct link to the hulking thing.

 

He hasn’t really practiced this, so he kinda just wings it when a small screen with the Galra from before pops open in front of him. "Attention Galra ship,” he starts, injecting all the authority he doesn’t feel into his voice, “Hold your fire. We are surrendering our Lions.” Then he cuts the transmission and slumps back in his seat, willing his heart to be still and his stomach calm. Blue rumbles in support, wishing him luck. “Thanks, girl,” he grumbles, patting the console. “Hope this works.”

Hunk’s video flashes in the corner of his viewscreen as he speaks. “Did that work? How do we know if it worked? Katie, Shiro, are you in?”

The video inside of Green’s cockpit is no longer available. “We’re in,” she responds over the comms. “I’m kind of concerned about how easy it was to just cut through the hull, though.”

“Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth,” Shiro admonishes.

“Yeah,” Lance says, as a bright pink light begins to emanate from the front of the ship, “You don’t have that kind of time. Hunk, _dodge!”_

“Wha- _ah!”_ Hunk yells as he jerks the Yellow Lion to the side, narrowly avoiding the gigantic beam of light that shoots from the Galra ship. Lance shuts his video off as he focuses on the task at hand. _“What is that?”_

“Tractor beam.” Lance ducks and weaves through the laser storm suddenly being produced by the battleship. “Looks like the ruse is up!”

### Shiro

Shiro hears Lance and Hunk shouting heads up at each other through the comms and mutes them. He's probably supposed to be listening to them as team leader, but between navigating an enemy ship— a _Galra_ ship— and convincing an ornery magic Lion to listen to him, Shiro is pretty sure he's going to need as little distractions as possible. Plus, he still has Allura’s commentary. He looks over to see Katie do the same thing, and when she notices she just shrugs.

“What? They were getting pretty loud. Plus, I didn't mute Allura.”

He faces forward again, studying the hallway they stepped into. “I didn't say anything.” His vision begins to swim, staring at the purple lights of a ship that feels far too familiar. He shakes his head to clear it. “C'mon, we better get moving.”

“Yeah. Allura, could you use your life force connection thingy to tell us where the Red Lion is exactly? Everything in here is just varying shades of ugly purple,” Katie asks, her footsteps falling behind him.

“Hmm, if I concentrate hard enough, maybe,” she responds.

“Maybe later, then,” he cuts in. “If they're trying to fight Hunk and Lance, then the Castle is an even bigger target.”

“Hopefully not for long. They're trying to destroy the ship’s ion cannon.”

_“Ion cannon?”_ Katie asks, wonder filling her tone.

_“Later._ We have a mission to do,” he tells her, but can't help but smile at her curiosity. They make it through a couple hallways before they hear the rhythmic _tap, tap, tap_ of an approaching patrol. Shiro tucks Katie and himself behind the support beams of the hallway, blocking them from the view of anyone coming from the sound’s direction. The _tap, tap, tapping_ comes closer, and soon it’s like he’s drowning in the sound. When he looks down he’s wearing a tattered purple shirt over a skintight black suit that feels as if it’s squeezing the air out of his lungs, and _he doesn’t have time to catch his breath, they just went past him, he has to go—_

“Shiro? _Shiro!”_ Katie’s harsh whisper pulls him forcibly out of the waking nightmare. He’s hunched on the floor, breath ragged and hands trembling. He clenches them, trying to hide the shakes. Whether it’s from Katie or himself, he’s not really sure. “What the hell happened?” she asks when he looks up at her, seeing that he’s back.

“This… this ship…” he says, staring back down at his hands, one flesh and the other metal. “I-I’ve been here before. This is where they took us when we were first captured…”

“We who?” she demands, leaning ever closer to him.

He looks up at her, feeling conflicted. He knows what this will do to Katie Holt. Seeing as she’s already in space, he knows exactly how she will react. Apparently, he doesn’t even need to say anything; the sick realization washes over her face anyway and sticks like a leech.

“The Kerberos crew.” She gets up, looking ready to rip straight through the walls of this place. She’s already cut through them before, right? “Where are they?”

“Katie,” he tries, wobbling to his feet.

“Where are they, Shiro? Where are the prisoners?”

“We can’t free them. We have a mission, Katie.”

“What do you mean we _can’t free them?_ Are we just gonna _leave prisoners_ on a _Galra ship,_ then?”

“Look, I know it’s bad, but—”

“We can’t leave them! Who knows what they’re doing to them! They’re _prisoners!”_

“I know—”

“They’re _my family!”_ she shouts at last, and behind the thin veneer of hatred in her eyes is a well of anguish that makes him choke on his final I know. _‘And you’re just going to leave them?’_ The words hang heavy in the air between them, unsaid but the furthest thing from unheard. Eventually, she straightens up and puffs out her chest. “I’m going to go find them,” she says, in a voice that brooks no argument, beginning to stalk off. He’s not sure he could argue if he tried.

 

So he does the next best thing.

 

“I’m coming with you,” he says.

She whirls on him, surprised.  He just nods and pulls her elbow, leading her in the right direction.

 

He retraces his steps through the cursed ship, and they find the prisoner’s ward with little thoroughfare. Katie somehow manages to reprogram a completely alien drone on the fly— which is a little disconcerting, but it does make it much easier to reach their destination. He steels himself before he follows Katie into the hall, but seeing the cell crammed full of cowering aliens still leaves him huffing for breath. He never thought he’d be back here— especially not by choice— and yet here he is. When he steps into their line of sight, a chorus of _oohs_ and _ahhs_ arises from the prisoners, and the whispers of _Champion_ make his jaw clench. Katie is quick to silence them with her questioning, as she immediately asks “Do you know Matt? Do you know where he is?” The aliens only stare back at her, cowering in unmasked fear. He wants to know too, _more than anything, he needs to know,_ but this interview isn’t going to do them any good if it’s done here.

“C’mon, let’s get them out of here first,” he tells Katie, turning around to walk out. Maybe if he stops looking at them, stops seeing Matt’s cowering face among them, he’ll be able to breathe easy again. “We can take them back to Green, and then go get the Red Lion.”

 

Surprisingly enough, him, Katie, and their band of escaped prisoners make it back to their entry point with no issue. It’s when they round the corner to the room where Green has poked her head through in anticipation of her passengers where they find all the missing security. The sight of the magnificent Voltron Lion peeking her head through the battleship’s floor would be funny if it weren’t for the _Galra with their guns raised, poised to shoot, strapped down to a table, a sickening, shrill laugh,_ and he comes back to himself with shortened breath and a whirring in his arm, which now glows a nauseating purple. He hears several sharp inhales and Katie’s “whoa…” behind him, and winces.

 

He may not (want to) understand those gasps, or the coward he almost let himself be, or these memories, but as he looks forward at the sentries, he realizes that this is something he knows. He straightens himself up and charges the hostile automations, fully prepared to lose himself in this.

### Keith

Everything is oddly still as Keith makes his way to the Red Lion’s hangar. He thought there’d be more scrambling soldiers, more captains shouting orders, more ship guns being fired, more explosions against their shields, but instead, the whole ship is eerily calm. Luckily for him, Keith doesn’t have to wait long to find out why.

 

“Clear hangars three and four for our two new Lions. Since they were kind enough to surrender, we’ll give our guests a warm welcome,” he hears Sendak gloat over the loudspeaker.

 

_“What?”_ he hisses under his breath. There’s no way that woman fell for his trick! Is she an _idiot?_ He quickens his pace, practically sprinting through the ship’s halls. He will _not_ have three Voltron Lions on this ship!

 

Luckily his panic doesn't last long. “They tricked us!” he hears Sendak growl over the loudspeaker and gives an airy laugh. He'd love to see Sendak’s face when he realized he'd been fooled. That means one of them must be on the ship, though. He’d hate to strand them in here, but he doesn’t foresee them finding the Red Lion anytime soon. Despite the ebbing worry in his chest, Keith keeps up his quickened pace. The sooner he gets that thing out of here, the better.

 

He skids into the Red Lion’s hanger, its sheer _size_ taking his breath away. It’s as big as at least two fighter jets and _much_ more regal. He takes his slow time approaching her, practically in a trance and unable to lift his jaw off the floor. Its shimmering particle barrier comes into view, and he presses his hand against it… and feels it repel him.

 

Right.

 

How Keith had managed to forget that not one person has gotten through this stupid shield yet, he has no idea. Well, there has to be an off switch somewhere, right? A magic word? Or…

 

“Hey, Sendak seems to think you’re sentient,” he begins, running his hand along the particle barrier. “I’m definitely not one to agree with him, but it’s worth a shot, right?” He raises his gaze to its face, feeling just a little dumb. “Hi, I’m Keith. Your… owner, or whatever, is out there. I’d really love to return you to her, but I can’t exactly do that if you don’t lower your particle barrier. So, uh… please… do that?”

Unsurprisingly, he gets no response. The barrier feels just as firm as it did when he first touched it. But if there was another way to open this thing, he’s sure someone would’ve found it before. He’s definitely not some genius either; the only kind of engineering he’s ever done is the mandatory ship repair training that all soldiers get in case of emergency. It looks like he’s gonna be in this for the long run, so instead of backing down he knocks on the Red Lion’s particle barrier.

“Hey!" he calls, dragging the word out. "What, do I have to knock politely? Bring you cookies? Bake you a _pie?”_ he shouts up at the unmoving Lion. He continues, with a soft growl. “Look, I can pilot you out! Freedom is right there! I’ll be in and be right back out, promise! Why—” he’s cut off by the sound of pounding footsteps. He whirls around to see sentries streaming into the Red Lion’s hangar, guns drawn and already beginning to fire.

 

_“Vrek,”_ he hisses, ducking behind the control panel of the hangar and putting his hand on his sword. He has his blaster with him too, but his shoddy aim against a bunch of literal robots… “Now would be a _great time to open up,”_ he grumbles, glaring up at the Red Lion. The stupid thing doesn't budge an inch. Well _fine,_ looks like he’s on his own for this one then. Wouldn’t even be the first time.

 

He peeks over the top of the control panel and sees that the sentries are quickly pressing their advantage. Okay, he doesn’t have time to argue with a maybe or maybe not sentient vrekking ship. He can’t exactly fight them all on his own. _But,_ he thinks, staring up at the panel, _if he could get rid of them some other way…_ Yeah, vrek it. He pulls out his sword and stabs it into the floor of the hangar, before slamming his fist down on the release button. He exhales sharply as the hangar depressurizes and the sentries fly out into the open space behind him.

 

The issue starts when he goes to hit the button again to close the hanger. Trying to reach forward with his free hand is a hassle and a half, and as he tries to stretch to press the button he feels his other hand start to slip. He grits his teeth and tries to tighten his grip, feeling his heart rate spike as he realizes that he _can’t._ The Red Lion stands up and roars as his fingers loosen, and _you could’ve done that earlier, you dumb Lion!_

 

He shuts his eyes tight and makes sure to exhale completely as he’s jettisoned into the vacuum of space. Luckily for him, it’s not long before gravity reasserts himself, and he hits a back wall. He opens his eyes facing a set of stairs and the inside of the Red Lion’s closed mouth. “Vrek, it’s about time,” he grumbles, and is met by an answering disapproving rumble that shakes the entire ground. “Yeah, yeah,” he calls back, “You did almost get me killed!”

 

Keith starts up the stairs, trying to ignore the fear shakes still wracking his frame. There’s nothing quite like being thrown into space, he’s learning very quickly. As he steps into the Red Lion’s cockpit, her consciousness hits him like a brick wall. _Hell, she_ is _sentient._ He takes his slow time walking to the pilot seat, taking in Red’s cockpit in awe. Keith sits gingerly in Red’s seat, unable to stop the smirk that lights up his face. “Good kitty,” he whispers, patting her control panel.

 

He gets a smug purr in response.

### Hunk

“Al—Princess? Where the heck did Katie and Shiro go? Are they close?” he chatters, dodging _yet another_ laser beam. He’d really love to destroy that stupid ion cannon, but that would be a whole lot easier if there were more than just two lions against this ant hive of a ship!

“No, Hunk,” she starts, frustration seeping into her regal tone. “I don’t think— Katie? Shiro? The Red Lion is out here!” she yells.

 

And sure enough, there it is. The Red Lion bursts out of an open hangar of the battleship and pauses, like it isn’t in the middle of a raging battle. Hunk cheers anyway, and hears a resounding whoop from Lance as well.

 

“It is?” he hears Katie ask over the comms. It’s the first time he’s heard from her or Shiro in the past 15 minutes. He inhales to give them a piece of his mind—

“Princess, that’s not us. We’re both in the Green Lion. And we have prisoners.”

“Prisoners?” Lance echoes over the comms.

“Wait—” Hunk starts, and jerks his Lion hard to avoid another laser,

“If that’s not us, then who is it?” Katie finishes for him.

“The Red Paladin,” Allura beams, smile evident in her voice. "Coran, hail them! We should coordinate with them, welcome them to—”

 

“No can do, Princess.” Coran sighs. “I tried— the Red Lion won’t allow me to open a visual communication link with them. Only audio.”

“Wait!” Pidge interjects. Maybe I can hack—”

“Hello?” a new voice cuts in. It’s low and rough, and is laced with the same uncertainty that Hunk feels. The uncertainty that comes from everything moving _way too freaking fast._ “Uh, is this Voltron?”

 

Everyone falls silent, stunned by this new person’s tone in the middle of a literal maze of lasers. “This sounds like a prank call,” Katie finally grumbles, breaking the silence. “Hi, is this Voltron? Can I get uhhhh, burger?” Shiro snorts, sounding like he’s really trying not to laugh in this situation. Is that another human thing?

 

“What the hell is a burger?” the new voices asks, sounding equal measures confused and frustrated. “No, stop. Look, I have the Red Lion. I assumed you would want her back, so I broke her out for you. Do you… Like, Sendak is pretty pissed at whatever trick you pulled on him, so I think it’d probably be better if I dropped her off sooner rather than later so you can—”

“Hello Red Paladin,” Allura cuts in, sounding much more poised than any of them. “I’m happy to say you won’t need to drop off the Red Lion. She is yours to pilot.”

“Mine to— what?” the voice asks, sounding even more confused. Hunk doesn’t blame him. At least he and the others got the rundown on what they were before the Princess started shoving roles at them. Not that it makes much of a difference.

 

“Pilot,” Lance drags the word out. “You know, like fly the ship? By the way, since you’re already out here, do you think you could help us fend off this literal quiznaking swarm of fighter jets?” he stresses, and Hunk looks over to see Blue trying to carve a path through a bunch of them. Right, the fight. Should probably pay more attention to that.

“Fine, okay,” the person says, and the Red Lion darts into motion at the same time the Green Lion finally pulls its head free of the battleship.

“Hey, do you have a name?” Hunk pipes up. Referring to him as ‘new person’ is starting to get really old.

“...Keith,” he says, after a moment’s hesitation.

_“Keith?”_ Katie questions, but Shiro talks right over her.

“Welcome to the team, Keith. You three run interference while we land at the Castle. We need to drop off these prisoners ASAP.”

“Why not, it’s not like we’ve been doing that pretty much since that mission began,” Hunk grumbles. He _loves_ being ditched with the bad guys.

“Okay, but hurry back. It’s like there’s no end to these guys!” Lance vents.

“Sure,” Keith agrees easily, already targeting the Galra jets. It kinda makes Hunk wonder where the guy came from, that he would agree to jump right into the fight without batting an eyelash.

 

“Actually Paladins,” Allura says before the Green Lion can get very far. “You all need to be in the Castle to free the Black Lion, but we are far too vulnerable while that ship still has an ion cannon. It would be in our best interests if you could destroy it before you return.”

“She has a point,” Shiro says. “Hunk, Lance, what have you tried to destroy it already?”

“Well, I got close to it a couple times but I didn't see a way to disable it. The structure looks—”

“Just ram it,” Keith interrupts. “If you ram into it hard enough it should buckle. Sendak is smart enough to not try firing it until it’s repaired, which should give you some time.” He pauses for a second. “The Yellow Lion could probably do it.”

Hunk sighs quietly. Figures. “On it!” he responds, moving away from the cannon to try and get some speed.

“Great. The rest of us can provide cover for you. Katie, Lance, Keith, we’re running interference. Focus on the fighters closest to the Yellow Lion, if you can!”

 

Hunk takes a deep breath. He’s just single-handedly responsible for destroy the super huge and dangerous gun on the back of the Galra battleship that’s trying to kill them all. No pressure, right? What if he can’t destroy it? What if Keith is wrong? What if this thing doesn’t bend at all, and Yellow bends instead?

 

He feels an indignant rumbling in his mind. He gets the impression of the Yellow Lion superimposed over the strongest crystal, the highest mountain. Unbreakable. Absolutely nothing will make him bend, and it would be foolish to try.

“Right,” Hunk breathes, smiling. If there’s any Lion who could do this, any _ship,_ it’s his boy. He charges full speed at the ion cannon without hesitation. As he crashes into it, Hunk feels the cannon crumple beneath him, and his heart swells with pride. He laughs, and hears the other Paladins whoop around him. The Yellow Lion exudes pride around him, and he pats his console in appreciation. “I shouldn't’ve doubted you,” he whispers.

### Allura

Allura can't help but smile as the team cheers on their small victory. She'd love to let them revel in it, but they have a job to do. “Great job, Paladins. Now hurry back so we can free the Black Lion and form Voltron!”

“Right,” Shiro says, a smile still in his voice. “Let’s head back, team!”

 

She watches the Lions descend from the sky, and tells Coran to open the hangar as she heads down herself. She couldn’t be there to see the other Paladins find their Lions, but she won’t miss this one for the world.  The Lions have all landed by the time the lift doors open at the hangar level. She makes eye contact with Shiro as he walks out of the Green Lion’s hangar, and for a quick second, she sees all of his anxiety written plain on his face. She flashes him a reassuring smile and he squares his shoulders before stepping in front of the giant twin doors blocking the Black Lion from the rest of the world.

 

The effect is immediate. All of the Lions rear up to their full height, letting out a bellowing roar that shocks even their Paladins, if the surprised noises filtering over the comms is any indication. The doors shudder and slide open, revealing the Black Lion standing at attention. It lets out its own roar, that far overpowers those of its pride mates. Shiro stumbles back a bit, but she’s not sure if it’s because of the force of its battle cry, the shock of its volume, or something else entirely.

 

Allura was just a twinkle in her parent’s eyes when the first Paladins of Voltron had bonded with their Lions. By the time she was old enough to truly remember them, their bonds had been unbreakable. Well… mostly unbreakable. Either way, being able to witness the first meeting between a Lion and their Paladin is an honor that very, _very_ few have gotten to see, and she has every intention of clinging to this experience with all her might.

 

“Paladins!” Coran shouts over the loudspeaker, effectively breaking both her and Shiro’s revere. “I’m sorry to cut this short, but it appears the Galra Battleship is preparing to fire it’s ion cannon at us again!”

“What?!” she yells, sprinting back to the lift she came down. The shields may have gotten a reprieve from the constant hail of lasers, but if they were hit by that ion cannon... “How is that possible?”

“Y-yeah! Yellow and I definitely destroyed it! It went crunch and everything!” Hunk yells back, sounding just as indignant as he does scared.

“You said that would destroy the canon, _Keith!”_ Katie adds accusingly. Allura taps her foot on the lift floor, in a hurry to at least _see_ what is happening outside of her ship.

“Okay, well, I never said that would destroy the canon. Just buy you some time!”

“It would’ve been nice to say that beforehand!” Lance gripes.

“Well it would also be nice if—”

_“Alright,”_ Shiro interjects, before anyone can say something truly nasty. “We can argue semantics later. Right now, we have a functioning ion cannon getting ready to fire on this location. Everyone into space _now._ Let’s stop this thing!”

 

The lift finally opens to the bridge, with mumbled affirmatives and a surprisingly strong “Roger” from Keith playing alongside the opening chime. There the battleship loomed, the nozzle of its cannon pointed right at them and the scanners detecting a steady build of energy at its base. She looked over to Coran, and sees the anxiety she feels coiled in her gut reflected right back at her. They could only hope the shields would hold.

 

She clenches her fists, hating how powerless she is to protect the palace that still houses her father’s pride and joy. She prays the Lions get out there soon.

### Lance

By the time the Voltron Lions make it back out into space, as a full set this time, the battleship’s ion cannon is mostly charged. There’s apparently no end to the fighter jets this thing spews either. They act as a shield for their parent ship, which lurches slowly towards Arus’ atmosphere. Lance grits his teeth, not feeling very optimistic about this.

 

“How did they even repair the cannon so fast?” Hunk moans. “Can I just ram it again?”

_“No,”_ Keith hisses. “While it’s charging up? That would be an _awful_ idea. It’s suicide!”

“Well do you have any _other ideas?_ We really don’t have much time!” He uses Blue’s mouth cannon to shoot down a few of the jets coming at him, before he has to dodge to the side.

“Actually, we don’t have _any_ time,” Katie warns, and Lance looks up just in time to see the battleship fire off a beam of light. It cuts through the space around them and hits the Castle. By the time it cuts out, the Castle’s particle barrier is still there, and he hears one of the other’s sigh in relief… Then the barrier explodes. Lance _knows_ the shockwave can’t carry through space, but that doesn’t stop him from feeling it. What he definitely does feel is the dread that comes when he sees the Galra ship is already charging up again.

 

“Oh no…” he hears Allura whisper through the comms. “Paladins—”

 

“We _have_ to stop that ship,” Lance grits out. He’s not gonna let his home away from home be destroyed… although the chances of saving it are looking kind of slim.

“If Hunk could break the cannon again, that could buy us more time to think of something,” Pidge says.

“Again? Getting to it was hard enough when they _weren’t_ actively trying to use that cannon!” Hunk yells, sounding outraged. Looking at the swarm of fighters buzzing around the battleship itself, Lance can see why the Balmeran is so reluctant. Considering how little of them are attacking them compared to before, he would even bet that their exact orders are to protect the ship as it gets ready to fire another shot at the Castle.

“Keith, are there any other weak points that we can target on the ship? Something that will destroy it, or at least permanently disable it?” Shiro asks, desperation beginning to bleed into his voice.

The Red Paladin is silent for a moment, before he responds with a clipped “no,” that Lance finds pretty suspicious. It sounds less like their mystery man thought it over and more like he just came to a decision.

“Well if we can’t get close enough to destroy the cannon and we can’t find another way to stop this ship then we’re _fucked,”_ Katie says, and Hunk whines in response. Lance slumps in his chair, resignation settling like a heavy weight on his chest. Even Keith mutters “It was nice flying with you…” under his breath, as they follow the battleship into Arus’ atmosphere. Their first mission as a team, and it looks like it's about to be their last.

 

“Do _not_ give up!” Shiro commands, voice hard and unyielding. “Whether we like it or not, the Castle of Lions is our home now, and we’re going to defend it like one! The Galra can only win if we let them, and _we won’t let them!_ Are you with me team?”

 

Shiro’s surety wraps them all in its embrace, and Lance finds himself yelling “Yeah!” along with the rest of the team. He sits up straight and grabs Blue’s controls again. She purrs in his head, ready to embrace her Paladin’s newfound purpose.

 

“How are we going to protect the Castle?” Keith asks, but he hears a determination in his voice that wasn’t there before.

“There’s only one Legendary Defender!” Hunk laughs.

“Voltron,” Lance whispers, grinning.

 

The pull is like something he’s never felt before. One minute Lance is inside Blue’s cockpit, heart brimming with anticipation,

——

And the next they’re five parts of a whole, minds flowing into each other at the edges. Lance senses the minds of the others as color at the edge of his mental landscape, with there intentions feeling like suggestions for his own actions. It’s like the entire battle pauses around them, everyone far too stunned to make a move.

 

“I can't believe it,” Keith breathes, breaking their stunned silence, and then laughs. It makes Lance grin as well, Katie let out a “hell yeah!”, and Hunk join in on the laughter. Their collective happiness threatens to overwhelm him; it’s funny how his Paladin training never really prepared him for just how _connected_ they’d all be. The mind meld helmets are nowhere close to _this._

 

“Good job, guys,” Shiro starts, “But now we have a job to do. First order of business: destroy that cannon!”

 

“Yeah!” they all shout back, and get into gear. The fighter jets that stood in their way as Lions do nothing to stop them now, and the cannon that was no small feat to make a dent in before easily rips away from the Galra battleship using Voltron’s might. Standing on top of the battleship, Katie punches down into the ship, intent on firing her laser cannon through where she thinks the command center must be. Lance isn’t exactly sure why she ends up hitting the back of the ship instead, but the ship explodes as they pull away, so he isn’t complaining.

——

The debris of the fallen ship lands somewhere in the plains surrounding the castle, and Lance feels silence reign in his head again as the Lions pull apart from one another. Blue gives him a fond purr, as if to remind him that she’s still there. He, Hunk, Shiro, and Katie all step out of their Lions with expressions ranging from uncontrollable grins to a more subdued smirk. The Princess and her advisor come out to meet them, and the older man immediately launches into praise for how amazing their performance was today.

 

“I can’t wait to see you form Voltron next time! You will have to do it over and over again, after all.”

“Wait, what? Like, _all the time?”_ Hunk asks incredulously.

“Of course,” Allura responds. Forming Voltron is a regular part of the job, for the Defenders of the Universe.”

 

Her statement gives everyone pause. _Defenders of the Universe._ That’s a title Lance had heard in both hush whispers and awed voices. They were the universe’s beacon of hope and the assurance that they would always be there to protect those in trouble and punish anyone who would dare to abuse their power over others helped innumerous people sleep at night.

 

“Defenders of the Universe, huh? That has a nice ring to it,” Shiro says, with a warm smile on his face. Then he turns towards the Red Lion. “There’s just one of us missing.”

“Yeah, about that.” Katie begins. “I tried to hack into his video feed earlier, but the Red Lion apparently _really_ didn’t like that.”

“You actually tried to hack a Lion?” Lance asks, at the same time Shiro says “Well maybe it just thought you should give its pilot some privacy.”

“Well, he has to come out eventually, doesn’t he?” Hunk asks, then cups his hands around his mouth and shouts “He—y! You should come out!”

“Wow, ever heard of tact?” Katie mumbles in response. Because trying to hack into a Lion of Voltron to see its video feed was obviously much better.

 

For a while, there’s no response. The Red Lion stays in its current sitting position, and if they hadn’t just shared headspaces Lance might even think the thing was empty. He's about to say something himself when the Red Lion finally lowers its head and drops its ramp. The team collectively holds their breath waiting for their mystery pilot to finally emerge and when he does… Well, Lance should have seen this coming.

 

The boy who emerges from the Red Lion’s mouth is a young Galra in full soldier uniform. His skin is a smooth lavender and his limbs are of a much more Altean proportion than a Galran one, as if he’s cross-bred. His helmet is tucked under his arm, giving Lance a clear view of the apprehension on his face.

 

A stillness falls over the moment, but it doesn’t last very long. Allura’s face contorts into an expression of rage as she stomps across the ring of Lions and up the Red Lion’s ramp. The Galra flinches backward as she directs the full force of her rage at him. She grabs his arm without saying a word, and practically drags him into the Castle. The rest of them can only stare after her incredulously in the wake of her anger.

 

“Well, shit,” Katie finally says, breaking the silence.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “This is me saying goodbye  
> But not just for tonight  
> This is the final exit  
> I should have made so long ago  
> Why did I wait  
> I've got this funny feeling  
> That I just don't don't belong here  
> Yeah, your eyes make it so clear  
> You only have the time  
> When you're bored  
> I'm not being selfish  
> I'm just being ignored  
> Your making a scene, yeah  
> But the scene's not making me”  
> Saying Goodbye- New Years Day
> 
> You wanna know what's funny? Every time I write a new chapter, Shiro is the one that fights me. It's like his ultimate goal in life is to not be written. Of course, when he does let me write him it’s possibly the angstiest thing I’ve ever written. Thanks, bro. Also I really didn't want to write Lance twice, since I figured everyone would probably show up once per chapter in this fic, but I figured it was some sort of intergalactic crime to make his section so short when I still had to write Voltron.
> 
> Also, I might go back and change the formatting of the last chapters. The double bars are annoying to do, and I'm thinking that maybe I shouldn't include names at all. It would make some things I have planned, much, much, much later a bit easier.


	5. She Wants Me Dead

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m not abandoning this! Even though it’s been… *looks at last time I updated* *sweats* Look, junior year was hard. And I’m about to be a senior in high school so… Yeah, don’t expect consistency. I’m doing this for fun, not for added stress.  
> (It’s literally been seven months, btw. That has to be a record.)

#  Katie

The team’s week starts with wailing alarms and the Princess yelling about some sort of attack. Katie jolts awake and is scrambling to her feet before she can fully process what’s happening. When did she fall asleep? Her laptop draws her attention as it clatters to the floor, and she tucks it under her arm before running out of the room.

 

Coran took the rest of yesterday to get them settled, showing them where a few key places and their rooms were. Now Katie rushes to the bridge as fast as her short legs and foggy mind will take her. It’s not long before she arrives, and she’s surprised to see that Lance is the only person not present. Didn’t he grow up in this place or something like that?

 

She doesn’t worry about it for very long though. The scene in front of her is too bizarre for that. Everyone stares as the advisor gesticulates on his knees like a crazy person, screaming about… the Princess’ head being chopped off or something? Said princess is currently reaching out a hesitant hand, like she wants to stop him but is too scared to get close.

 

“C-Coran? They’re here, you can stop now...” she pleads, wincing.

The man stops mid-sentence as he notices the three Paladins blinking at him. “A-ah. I suppose they are.” He rises sheepishly, clearing his throat.

 

“Right,” Allura starts, and visibly switches into leader mode. “Now that you’re all… here… Where is Lance?”

 

As if on cue, the Bridge doors slide open and Lance walks through. He’s wearing a set of Altean PJs and… Blue Lion slippers? His skin practically glows, but his expression tells of a sleepless night. He walks up beside Hunk, puts his elbow on the Balmeran’s shoulder, and drawls “You rang?”

_ “Yes,  _ I  _ did.”  _ Allura hisses. “If this were a real emergency, the whole Castle would have already been overrun! It took far too long for all of you to get here, and Shiro is the only person even in his armor!”

“If this were a real emergency, Blue would’ve told me. You know, when the old Paladins wanted to test our reaction times, they’d just run an actual time trial, not have Coran yell stupid stuff over the PA. No offence, Coran.”

 

“Well, the old Paladins aren’t here!” Allura yells back.

 

A storm brews over Lance’s face, and Katie braces herself for a real fight. She can see Shiro tense and Hunk start sweating from his place by Lance’s side, but the outburst they’re all waiting for doesn’t come. Instead he calmly— far too calmly— says, “I noticed.”

 

“Good,” Allura huffs. “You are all far too slow to respond. As the new Paladins, you will have to be ready for battle at a moment’s notice. None of you are even awake!”

“Uh,” Hunk starts, raising his hand, “I’m pretty sure that’s expected? I mean, I met several Alteans, flew through a wormhole, bonded with a giant alien robot lion,  _ and  _ fought the Galra head-on, all in the space of a day! I think we deserve to be a little slow still.”

 

The Princess just stares at him for a bit, her mouth an unhappy line across her face. Then she reaches up and touches a holographic panel that appears under her fingers. The whole room lights up with those same swirling blue spheres from before. Coordinates. With a bit more poking, the majority of them flash before turning an angry red.

 

“Each of these highlighted coordinates are places where the Castle has picked up distress beacons in the last 10,000 years,” she says solemnly, drawing attention back to her. “And for those of you who have never seen a map of the known universe,” She continues, with a swipe of her hand, “This is Earth.” The little planet hangs in its own solar system, with the red wave creeping towards it, but not quite there. Suddenly Katie finds it that much harder to breathe. “We have given Zarkon 10,000 years to do with the universe as he pleases, and he has capitalized on every second of it. Our job is to turn all of these red coordinates blue again. We do not have  _ time  _ to be slow. We have a lot of catching up to do already.”

 

She taps the panel again, and the map closes unceremoniously. “Coran and I will prepare the Castle to leave Arus. In the meantime, you will master the bonds between both your Lions and each other. Voltron will be our most valuable asset in this fight, after all.”

“And the Red Paladin?” Lance pipes in, again.

“We will find someone,” Allura responds.

“We have someone.”

“The  _ prisoner  _ will stay in his cell, until  _ I  _ decide what to do with him,” She bites back. That’s not a subject Katie is brave enough to argue with her on. Apparently, Lance isn’t either. Not yet, at least.

“Right,” Shiro says, breaking the hush that falls over them. “We should get to our Lions right away then.”

“Wait,” Katie finally interjects. “I want to talk to the prisoners first.”

“Unfortunately, you'll have to wait,” Allura replies, giving her a sad smile. “They will need a few more hours in the healing pods at the very least. They will be there when you return, however.”

Katie huffs in response. “Fine. But I want to talk to them as soon as they wake up, you hear?”

“Very well. We will let you know.”

With that confirmation, she nods, then turns around and struts towards the elevator that will take her to Green.

#  Shiro

The minute Katie turns around, he makes a cutting motion across his throat and mouths no at the Princess. He's sure the last thing those prisoners need when they first get out of the healing pods is Katie in their faces demanding answers,  _ again.  _ The two Alteans just stare back at him quizzically, so he huffs and waits until the rest of the team steps into their elevators before walking up to the pair.

"Let the prisoners rest a bit before you tell Katie about them. They'll probably need some time to recuperate before they're ready to answer any questions."

"But wouldn't it be better if she knows when they're available?" The Princess asks.

"Just... give them some time. I don't want her rushing in right after they wake up. Plus, we're going to be training today, right? It can wait until after we finish."

"Very well," She responds with a nod. "You should get to your Lion soon. I will guide your exercises from here."

"Right, thanks." With that, he heads to his own lift and goes to join the rest of the team.

 

Getting into the Black Lion from the Bridge is a long and convoluted process, but Shiro figures it beats walking. Black gives him a greeting purr as he finally plunks down in his seat, and he pats their console in greeting. "Nice to see you too. Let's find out what the Princess has in store for us."

 

The rest of them are already in their Lions and waiting outside of the Castle. Once he makes it out, the Princess' face pops up in a visual feed in the corner of his screen. "Alright Paladins, to begin, it is a good idea to form a bond with your Lions. The closer you are to being one with your Lions, the easier it will be for you to form Voltron in the future."

 

Another feed pops up next to Allura's this time with Coran's face in the middle. "For now, we're going to give you some time alone with your Lions. It's a good idea to get a feel for the way they handle. There's no other ship like them in the entire Known Universe, after all!"

 

"Right," Katie starts. "So we just... fly around?"

"For now, yes." The Princess responds. "It is important that you know the limits of your Lions before we get into anything more."

"I dunno what you're complaining about, Katie! We've got nothing but our Lions and the open sky. I'm gonna take advantage of it!" The Blue Lion starts a slow gait that quickly turns into a run, and is off the ground before anyone else begins to move. Lance's laughter echoes over the comms and brings a smile to Shiro's own face.

"Well, no time like the present," He says, taking off.

 

It's not long before everyone else is also in the air. Katie takes to chasing Hunk around, and the sight of the tiny Green Lion chasing down the much, much larger Yellow Lion would be comical if it weren't for the fact that its superior speed didn't force Hunk to put some serious effort into his evasion. Yellow could obviously take some hits, but speed wasn't its strong suit. He'll have to keep that in mind for later. Lance, on the other hand, was perfectly content showing off in the Blue Lion. Shiro watches as he does loop-de-loops and somersaults in mid-air, keeping up the constant laughing. It makes it quite obvious that this isn't his first time in his Lion. It's not any of theirs, but as Shiro flies lazy circles around the Castle, with everyone else enjoying themselves around him, he couldn't help but feel a little... lost. He can hear a faint rumbling from Black in the back of his mind, but it sounds like little more than a buzz under the whir of alien machinery. With little idea of what he's supposed to do here, Shiro closes his eyes and prods the small corner of his mind that the Black Lion has made for themselves. They give an answering purr, and he feels the yoke move under his hands. Well, he's not doing much with them anyway, so he lifts his hands and lets Black to do as they please.

 

The Black Lion leads them up and away. Away from the Castle, away from his new teenage charges, away from the surface of this strange alien planet. Soon they're within the clouds surrounding Arus, where he can almost pretend he's on Earth instead. He puts his hands back on the yoke and makes their flying a collaborative effort. For the most part, Shiro keeps them soaring through the fluffy clouds, but every once in a while Black will lower them to show him an impressive mountain range, or an unstoppable river, or a particularly sprawling forest. Despite coming in contact with both the Arusians and the Castle shortly after landing, Shiro quickly came to realize that most of Arus was completely uninhabited. Maybe this is what Earth looked like millions and millions of years ago. Just sprawling land and undisturbed beauty. The only other break in the wild look of this place is the wreckage of the Galra battleship they fought earlier. It seems surprisingly intact for what they did to it. He makes a note to let the others know later. Who knows what kind of information Sendak's ship could give them. Later, though. For now, he needs to get back.

 

 Black navigates them back to the castle and lets them down gently. "Hey, Shiro, where've you been?" Katie says, sounding triumphant. The Green Lion sits on the ground in front of the Castle, looking far too smug for a giant robot cat. She must've won their little game of cat and mouse then. Er, Lion and Lion.

"They told us to fly around, so I flew. Where are Lance and Hunk?"

The Green Lion gestures with its head, tail flopping around contently. “I guess Lance got tired of doing tricks on his own, so he got Hunk to fly side by side with him. He said he was gonna teach him, but if you ask me he's just trying to win a race that only one of them knows they're flying."

"Huh. Well, at least they're enjoying themselves. Aren't you supposed to be out there as well?"

"I was."

 

Before Shiro can follow up on that, the Princess' viewscreen opens up again. "Actually, I was thinking we could do something else for now.”

#  Hunk

Ahead of him, the Blue Lion slows down at the Princess' interjection. "Sure, like what?" its pilot asks.   
"Well, it's likely that most of the time you spend flying your Lions won't be in open air, correct?"   
Hunk thinks back to their recent space battle. With the number of lasers the Galra have at their disposal? Yeah, no. "Right..." he says, a little skeptical as to what she has in mind.   
"Perfect. We need to test the Castle's automated defense system, and I have a feeling you will make perfect targets."   
"Wait, what?" Katie says, and the Green Lion springs abruptly out of its crouching position as a blindingly blue laser hits the ground where it was just sitting, scorching the rock there. "Hey, seriously! What do you think you're doing?"   
"Giving you all a little motivation!" she smiles, and soon Hunk can't pay her image very much attention because the Castle is definitely putting in the effort to kill them. "I'll leave this running until we finish the rest of the scans. Have fun!"   
_ "Fun?"  _ he yells back. "How is this supposed to be  _ fun?"  _ Her viewscreen closes with a click before he has a chance to demand that she turn it off.   
"Use evasive maneuvers," Shiro grits out, Having hopped up from his position beside the green Lion.    
"Evasive maneuvers? Like what?" Katie yells back, trying her best to avoid the hail of lasers coming her way.  _ How are there so many of them? _   
"It means run!" Lance shouts back, flying further and further away.   
  
"Forget this, I'm heading back to the Castle!" There had to be some way for him to work his way in, right? Some blind spot in the lasers? Or, Yellow's thing is ramming, right? Maybe he could break his way through! Yellow's doubtful rumble should be enough to tell him to back off, but he's been away from this place for a whole 10,000 years. That's plenty of time for the Castle's shield to deteriorate or something like that. He sets the Yellow Lion bounding between the lasers and makes his way towards the shield itself. He feels the Yellow Lion brace himself for impact, and rams his sturdy head into the particle barrier— and nothing happens. They're bounced back from the wall and honestly, they're both lucky that Yellow gets his feet under him in time to avoid the next laser that takes aim at them. Looks like there really isn't any getting through this shield.   
  
Evasive maneuvers it is, then.

 

They end up back in the Castle after what feels like hours. Everyone except Shiro is laid out on a couch, with Lance having turned himself completely upside down in his quest to get comfortable. Hunk feels like he should point out that the position doesn't look comfortable whatsoever, but he figures it's an Altean thing and leaves it alone.

The Princess looks far too chipper for Hunk’s liking when she finds the lounge room they're all collapsed in. “You're back! Did you have a good time with the Castle’s defenses?” she asks, absolutely beaming at them.

“Yeah, definitely,” Lance says from his upside down position on the middle couch. The Princess raises an eyebrow when she spots him, so maybe it isn't an Altean thing. Just a Lance thing. “It was a great opportunity to… uh… get used to flying our Lions in intense situations.”

“What he said.”

“Well, that’s lovely! I’m sure your flying will be better for it.”

“Uh, actually,” Hunk begins. The other two lift their heads to glare at him, but he feels really bad about lying! If the Princess is gonna be proud of them, it should be because of something they actually did. “We kind of just ran away until we were outside of the castle’s range. Y’know, so it would stop shooting at us.”

“What? That completely defeats the purpose of the exercise!” Luckily for him, Shiro chooses that exact moment to walk in, with his arms full of water packs. “Shiro! You’re supposed to be the leader! You let them just run away?”

The man in question stares at her until he figures out what's going on. “Sometimes retreat is the most tactical decision. It allows you to regain your footing and make better choices,” Shiro bullshits. They all know that's not the reason why they left.

Unfortunately for them, so does the Princess. “If you ‘retreat’ from this, then in how many _other_ battles will you do the same thing? The Universe doesn't need Paladins who will run away from every fight, it needs Paladins that will fight for it even when pressed! How will you be that if you can't even stick with something like this?”

“Princess?” Coran pipes up, “Might I suggest a more… regulated activity?”

That gives the Princess pause. She turns to him with a slight smile on her face. “What did you have in mind?”

 

Hunk has an awful feeling he won’t like this.

#  Lance

It’s been so long since he’s done any of the ‘new recruit’ training exercises. They were awful when he had to do them with people he considered complete strangers but over the years they had become fond memories to look back at and laugh about.

 

Unfortunately, it seems like Coran is hellbent on making him remember why he hated them. He’s dug up all the old training regimes, right down to the introductory speech that comes before each one, and unearthed what Lance considers sacred memories in the process. Especially since he’s the only one of his squad left.

 

Right now, that doesn’t seem to matter to either the Princess or Coran. They start with his least favorite exercise: the maze. Worst of all, he’s the one in it.

“Okay, start by going forward ten meters,” Katie's voice calls over the loudspeaker.

“What?” he yells, already in a bad mood. “What unit of measurement even is that?”

“Only the most scientific measurement. Do you guys not have meters? What do you measure with?”

“Why don't you just use steps? That's so much easier!”

“Fine,” Katie mumbles. “Take like… 17 steps.”

“Fine,” he grumbles back. He counts to 17 in his head but only makes it 11 steps before he's being electrocuted. “Ow, hey! You said 17 steps! That was only 11!”

“Well it's it's not my fault you're so tall! Take smaller steps!”

“What?!” It takes a moment for him to realize what the problem is. “Don't give me Katie steps!”

“Are you calling me short?!”

“Yes, pipsqueak! Give me normal person steps!”

“Fine! Turn right and walk 5 steps!”

“Okay!” He turns to the right and takes a step forward… straight into an invisible wall. The cackling that rings out of the loudspeaker just adds insult to injury.

 

He takes off his helmet and throws it down, screaming “Let's do something else!!”

—

That something else turns out to be drone exercises. 

 

Personally, he thinks he did pretty well against the gladiator. His shooting skills are still on point. Shiro isn't bad either, even though he seems to have no idea how to use the pike that he picked as a weapon. However, the flaw in their training makes itself evident when Katie wraps her grappling hook around his legs instead of the gladiator’s, tripping him, and Hunk barrels into Shiro trying to run away from it. Shiro recovers in time to fight back, but just… freezes as it runs towards him. The gladiator smacks them all once for shits and giggles because apparently taking themselves out wasn't enough.

 

The shooting drill is so abysmally pathetic that he immediately tries to erase it from his mind. It. Didn't. Happen.

—

They decide to take it easy and pretend to form Voltron instead. This way, no one will get hurt. There’s just one issue: they don't have a Red Paladin. At least, the one they do have is currently locked in the dungeon.

 

“For the purposes of today’s exercise, I will be the Red Paladin,” the Princess says. She takes a seat in the ring of Paladins and grabs one of the telepathy helmets.

 

“For this one, you’ll have to focus on forming not only your Lions but Voltron itself. The process is deeply tied to your mental state, so if you can do it here you can probably do it with your Lions!” Coran pipes up. “Just focus on visualizing your Lions, and joining them together, and you’ll be done in a jiffy!”

 

Of all the exercises they’ve done today, this one sits especially uncomfortably in the pit of his stomach. Not only are they treading on especially tender memories, but doing this with a fake Paladin just feels… wrong. Still, he sucks it up and puts on the helmet, closing his eyes and focusing solely on his connection with Blue. He will _not_ be the reason this goes awry.

 

Hearing Blue’s purring in the back of his mind makes it that much easier to block out any unnecessary thoughts. He feels one of the others rustling around in his head too, which is annoying, but the feeling passes soon enough. One by one their parts begin to come together. First he feels Shiro join him, then the Princess and, after a moment, Hunk gets the hang of it too. Then, for a while, there’s nothing.

“Katie,  _ focus,”  _ he hears the Princess grit.

“I’m trying!”

“Try harder.”

“Why don’t we just take it easy?” Shiro buts in. “Katie, just try to focus on the Green Lion.”

“I said I’m trying! It’s kinda hard when  _ Hunk  _ keeps rooting around in my head!”

“Wait, I thought we’re supposed to be communing? Like, open and stuff?”

“We’re supposed to be forming Voltron! No one said that was a free pass for you to be nosy!”

“Well, sorry! Earth just seems really interesting!”

Lance sighs and opens his eyes. Everyone else has joined their Lions, but Katie is still flickering between the image of the Green Lion and… two humans?

“Okay,” Shiro tries again, sounding strained. His own Lion begins to flicker. “What if we all just—”

“You won’t have peace and quiet when the Galra are attacking you in the middle of a battle. You must learn to focus on your Lion  _ yourself.” _

He finally decides to speak up. “No offence, Princess, but I think you’re jumping straight to level twenty here. Can we just get the basics down first?”

“We are  _ at ‘ _ level twenty’!” she responds, air quotes and everything. “We do not have  _ time  _ for you to start from level one!”

“Screw this!” Katie yells, jumping up and spiking her helmet. Lance flinches, honestly expecting the thing to shatter, and the rest of their fake Voltron falls apart. “I’m not doing any more of your stupid drills!!” He doubts anyone is surprised when she stomps straight out of the training room.

“Well,” he mumbles, staring at the Princess. “That went well.”

#  Allura

Apparently, her new Paladins are incapable of taking any of their training seriously. Everything they’ve done today was simple. The flying Lions, the invisible maze, the gladiator, even the shooter drill… What is so hard about holding up a shield? How did they not even last five seconds?!

 

She decides to try a different approach this time. Maybe the first drill with the Castle’s defenses was too open-ended. Maybe the more traditional exercises were too… complicated? Either way, she would need something that was simple, but that they would not have a choice but to participate in. As much as she hated to ruin the wonderful meal Coran had so dutifully prepared, the dining table seemed like the perfect environment for such a drill.

 

Lance looks to be the only Paladin actually excited about their specialized dinner, but they are all grateful for it nonetheless. That is, until she presses the activator and the handcuffs snap to their wrists. There is a resounding cry as the Paladins suddenly find themselves locked to each other and attached at the wrists.

 

"We are trying something new," Allura says, happy that this gets their attention. "Coran has prepared a lovely meal for all of you, but if you are going to enjoy it, you will have to feed each other."

The aforementioned man nods. "It truly is a meal fit for a Paladin! And now you get to enjoy it together, while also building your coordination!"

 

Hunk looks personally offended by this new development. "Okay, the Lions? I get it. We should get used to them. The gladiator? I mean, I hated being beaten up by it, but sure, of course we need to know how to fight. Even the mind meld was fine because we're obviously going to need Voltron. But  _ this? _ My  _ food? _ How could you!"

"Yeah, what the hell?!" Katie adds, tugging at her wrists, she only succeeds in pulling Shiro almost on top of her. "What part of taking a break did you not understand?"

"I never agreed to you taking a break," She's not sure if telling them about their  _ severe lack of time _ once more is worth it, but she reiterates it anyway. "Every hour we spend here is an hour more Zarkon has to enslave some new world and continue his tyranny. So no, we are not taking a break."

"God, do you ever shut up with that?" The smaller girl spits back. Coran has launched to his feet before she even has a chance to respond.

"Do  _ not _ talk to the Princess like that!" he yells, pointing an accusing finger at her.

"Oh, princess of what?!" she yells back, also jumping up. She startles both Lance and Shiro as their wrists are yanked up with her, albeit not very far. "Last I checked, I'm not exactly one of her subjects!"

"Oh no," she thinks she hears someone whisper, but she can't exactly make out who over the sudden sound of blood rushing through her ears. Sure they may all be new to this. But even if Altea is gone, she won't stand for her post, and her past, being diminished like this! She grabs a handful of food goo and chucks it squarely in Katie's face, and waits until it has cleared to shake the remaining goo off her hand with extreme prejudice.

 

Katie just stares at her for a second, food goo still sloshing off her face, before she says "Shiro?" as she glances at the man in question. He has a grim look on his face when he nods back, and Katie wastes no time in grabbing a handful of the same goo and chucking it back at her. Coran's quick thinking prevents her from having the same fate as Katie as he raises a plate to block the shot.

Hunk lets out a pained noise before trying to reason with them, saying "Guys, can we not waste—"

He's cut off by Lance yelling " _ Foodfight! _ " at the top of his lungs, after which all hell breaks loose. Everyone is chucking food goo, despite the fact that the Paladins are still chained together, and even Coran gives up on shielding her and joins in on the fun. She's soon absolutely drenched in goo, but she realizes that this is the first time she's really laughed since waking up. Once she realizes she can't even focus on retaliating and breaks out into full laughter.

 

The sound of splattering goo stops soon after and Shiro lets out a worried "Princess?"

 

It takes her a bit to get herself together again but when she can finally speak it's with a huge smile. "You didn't need something less open-ended or less complicated, you just needed to have fun!" The team stares at her in confusion as the rest of her giggles die down. "I'm very sorry, Katie. All of you, really. I spent the entire day trying to figure out why your training was going so abysmally. It wasn't that you were incompetent or difficult, it was me! The minute you had an objective and a fun way of completing it, well, look at you! You're naturals!"

 

The Paladins look down at their shackled wrists, then at each other, and burst into laughter.

"Yeah, I guess we are!" Shiro says.

"Cool! ...Can we like, actually eat now?" Lance adds, just before his stomach rumbles.

"Of course! You better eat up before your food gets cold! although, the beauty of a Paladin lunch is that it is just as good cold as it is hot," Coran replies, twiddling with his mustache. Besides Lance, the team still does it look very enthused about the meal. Oh well, they just haven't tried it yet.

 

Allura unlocks their wrists and excuses herself while the Paladins eat. She doesn't get very far down the hallway before she hears feet following her.

"Are you alright Princess?" her father's advisor asks.

"Fine, Coran. It's just... I can't help but feel as if my father would have known what to do here  _ without _ the food fight," she mumbles, hunching her shoulders.

A familiar hand comes down on her shoulder, and she turns around to see a fond smile on Coran's face. "Alfor was once new to this as well, Allura. You did very well today, and you  _ will _ get better."

 

She gives him a small smile in return and excuses herself to get cleaned up. she just hopes she'll get the hang of this in time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Woke up this morning with a gun to my head  
> Brotha' should have told me she want me dead  
> Without a warning, not a clue, without a sound  
> In your house, out of bounds, but remember you can't hide”  
> She Wants Me Dead- CAZZETTE & AronChupa
> 
> Allura's character early on (and some things she did in season 2) really irked me, so writing an unlikeable Allura was a kind of catharsis. She'll get better. Eventually.
> 
> Also, writing around Keith was kind of a pain in the behind.

**Author's Note:**

> “And I, I can feel the pull begin  
> I feel my conscience wearing thin  
> And my skin  
> It will start to break up and fall apart  
> I don't wanna fall, fall away  
> I don't wanna fall, fall away  
> I'll keep the lights on in this place  
> 'Cause I don't wanna fall, fall away”  
> Fall Away- Twenty One Pilots
> 
> Fic playlist- https://open.spotify.com/user/sarathewise/playlist/0KkqbBniGbRYSNzpZCeQi2  
> Title song playlist, in case you don't wanna look through the entire playlist for them - https://open.spotify.com/user/sarathewise/playlist/0LYnRWy2gfdL52Eshyk87y?si=rYCDjYDiTdKYG7DgFT_s1Q


End file.
